Surveillance and Evaluation: Helping Tobacco Prevention Program Demonstrate Results

Issue

Youth Tobacco Prevention is a growing concern not only across the country but in South Carolina as well. Consider the following:
•Some 3.4 million high school students currently smoke in the U.S.
•6,000,000+ kids under 18 that are alive today will ultimately die from smoking (unless smoking rates decline)
•As of 2011, the SC High School current smoking rate was above the national average.
•Over half of the 13-18 year olds that smoke in SC try to quit each year but have a low success rate.

Intervention

Although improvements had been made in SC’s youth smoking rates prior to 2007, rates have since begun to climb through 2011. As such, significant efforts were made by the Tobacco Prevention and Control division at SC’s Department of Health and Environmental Control(DHEC) as well as its partners to target youth tobacco use. Monitoring and evaluation efforts were put in place to measure impact, help make decisions for the future, and provide evidence to support and validate program’s progress.

Several of the Tobacco Prevention and Control division’s targeted efforts include:
•Implementing a youth program engaging middle and high school students to understand the health risks of tobacco use and secondhand smoke.
•Increasing the number of tobacco-free schools across the state.
•Putting statewide survey assessments of tobacco use into place.

Surveys are a primary tool evaluators use to investigate whether programs are achieving their desired impact. Since 2005, DHEC’s Tobacco Prevention and Control division has partnered with the SC Department of Education and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to administer a survey titled the SC Youth Tobacco Survey (SCYTS). SCYTS is a survey designed to evaluate the extent of tobacco use, among numerous other measures. It is administered every other year to students at public middle and high schools across the state for an average of more than 3,000 student participants.

Impact

In July of 2013, the Tobacco Prevention and Control Division received the results of this year’s SCYTS. The results of the survey suggest a strong correlation between the Tobacco Division’s efforts towards youth and improvements in youth smoking rates.  According to the new data:
•Current cigarette use among high school students decreased from 23% in 2011 to 15% in 2013.
•Overall Tobacco use among high school students decreased from 33% in 2011 to 27% in 2013.
•The potential health savings from medical expenses for tobacco-related illnesses as a result of these decreases amounts to approximately $2,326,500 (Alere, 2011).

Contact

Daniel J. Kilpatrick, MPH, CEPR
Bureau of Community Health
and Chronic Disease Prevention
SC Department of Health and Environmental Control
803.545.4484
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