An effort to stop teens from smoking will be expanded into Scotland County, now that a state grant has been approved.

A fourth phase of funding from the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund will allow FirstHealth Community Health Services to continue its efforts to reduce tobacco use among young people in Hoke, Montgomery, Moore and Richmond counties while adding Scotland County.

The new $300,000 HWTF grant will also focus on eliminating the exposure of young people to secondhand smoke.

The number-one cause of preventable death in the United States, tobacco use takes the lives of more than 440,000 Americans each year. It is also the leading cause of preventable death and disability in North Carolina.

“The overall goals of this new funding will be to create a greater emphasis on prevention, and awareness of tobacco education, while also promoting the need to eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke,” says Brooke Love, the health educator with FirstHealth Community Health Services who coordinates the grant-supported activities in the five counties. “In the last three years, we have been successful in training a large number of young people to spread the word about the harms of tobacco use in their schools and communities.”

Despite the known health risks, thousands of young North Carolinians take up tobacco use each year. According to North Carolina’s 2007 Youth Tobacco Survey, 27 percent of N.C. students report using some form of tobacco. FirstHealth and its school and community partners will use educational and policy-oriented programs with proven tobacco-prevention messages to reach teens in the five targeted counties.

FirstHealth’s tobacco-use-prevention initiative depends heavily on student volunteers called Teens Against Tobacco Use (TATU) and Tobacco.Reality.Unfiltered (TRU) advocates. These young people are trained to educate their peers and elementary school students about the harmful realities of tobacco use and how to stand up to peer pressure to use tobacco. They also advocate in their schools and communities for policies against smoking and other forms of tobacco use.

According to Love, the work has made a difference. Since HWTF began funding prevention efforts in 2003, the rate of decline in high school smoking has nearly tripled. Based on the 2007 Youth Tobacco Survey, current cigarette smoking among high school students dropped from 20.3 percent in 2005 to 19 percent in 2007. Current cigarette smoking among middle school students decreased from 5.8 percent in 2005 to 4.5 percent in 2007.

Recent studies have also shown that high schools in districts that have had a 100 percent tobacco-free-school policy in effect for at least four years report 32 percent fewer tobacco-users than schools without the policy. All of North Carolina’s 115 school districts have been 100 percent tobacco free since Aug. 1, 2008.

“With the support of HWTF and the Tobacco-Free Sandhills network, FirstHealth will continue its commitment to reduce teen tobacco-use rates,” says Love.