[W]hile middle and high school students are smoking cigarettes less than they were a few years ago, the problem is not yet extinguished, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Vermont, 13 percent of youths are smoking, according to the 2013 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey of high school and middle school students, but there are regions in the state where that number reaches as high as 24 percent.
“Overall, we have reduced smoking by youth statewide, but in some regions of the state, almost a quarter of our students identify themselves as smokers,” said Bob Uerz, the tobacco use prevention coordinator for the Agency of Education (AOE). Vermont has set a goal to have no more than 10 percent of youth smoking by 2020.
In North Country Supervisory Union and Rutland-Windsor Supervisory Union, 24 percent of the high school students are smoking, according to the AOE. Orange North Supervisory Union has 21 percent admitting to smoking and Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union has 20 percent.
At the middle school level, six supervisory unions had youth smoking rates above 5 percent and 19 had rates less than 2 percent. Lamoille North Supervisory Union and Orange North Supervisory Union were the highest for these grades with 7 percent of students admitting to smoking during the month before the survey.
That is why the AOE is going to introduce a new Tobacco Use Prevention Grant in January that is targeted to those supervisory unions with highest rates of youth smoking and poverty. The grants will require each supervisory union to be active in six strategy areas: curriculum, assessment, policy, youth asset development, teen cessation, and community engagement to address the current smoking rates, says an AOE news release.
“By targeting the regions with the greatest need and providing each with sufficient resources to really make a difference we hope to have a greater impact on this problem,” Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe said.
The grants are also to be used by supervisory unions to curtail e-cigarette use among youths over the next four years.
Since 2011, electronic or e-cigarette use has increased among middle and high school students, according to the CDC. Nationally, nearly four of every 10 middle school students and more than 13 of every 100 high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the 30 days prior to the latest survey.
Stopping teens from smoking tobacco is critical because these are the years when the habit and resulting addiction begin. Nearly 90 percent of smokers lit up before they turned 19, according to the CDC.
The $30,000 competitive, four-year grants will be awarded to supervisory unions in July of 2016.
In the past, grants were noncompetitive and not targeted. In 2015-2016, 52 supervisory unions and school districts received funding, 20 of which received the base amount of $5,800.
This new approach that the AOE is taking is funded by money derived from the national settlement with the tobacco companies.
