WOONSOCKET, R.I., June 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Given the
significant increase in the number of teens using e-cigarettes, CVS
Health today announced that it and its charitable foundations will
award a total of more than $10
million in 2019 to support youth smoking and e-cigarette
prevention strategies and education delivered in classrooms, by
clinicians and in communities across the
United States. The new commitment, funded through the
company and the CVS Health and Aetna Foundations, is part of Be
The First, CVS Health's five-year $50
million initiative to help deliver the nation's first
tobacco-free generation.
"The spread of e-cigarette use among youth jeopardizes the
progress made in reducing smoking over the last two decades," said
Troyen Brennan, M.D., M.P.H. and Chief Medical Officer for CVS
Health. "By collaborating with experts and aggressively
investing in innovative strategies, we believe that we can help
reverse this disturbing trend."
According to the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey, there are
3.6 million middle and high school students who are current
e-cigarette users, a dramatic increase from the more than 1.5
million students the previous year. This represents a 78 percent
increase among high school students, and a 48 percent increase
among middle school students. Research shows young people who vape
are four times more likely to begin smoking cigarettes in the
future, according to Truth Initiative®.
In launching year four of its signature Be The First
initiative, CVS Health and its Foundations are creating new
collaborations and supporting the expansion of effective programs
to help thwart the significant rise in youth e-cigarette use.
Delivering Youth Smoking and E-Cigarette Prevention in the
Classroom
The CVS Health Foundation is investing in a multi-year,
multi-million dollar collaboration with Discovery Education
to create and distribute standards-aligned digital curriculum
resources and engaging content to help middle and high school
students learn about the risks of e-cigarette use.
Leveraging Discovery Education's instructional expertise,
production capabilities, and strong distribution
channels, these resources will be available to every school
district in the U.S. with plans to integrate best in-class
curriculum partners including the CATCH Global
Foundation's CATCH My
Breath youth e-cigarette prevention program. As part of the
program, instructional and programmatic resources will be provided
to students, educators, and parents at no-cost.
Additionally, a new two year, $2
million grant will be used to support a first-of-its-kind
quit vaping program, developed by Truth Initiative to
help teens and young adults break free from e-cigarettes. Called
#ThisIsQuitting and part of the truth campaign, the text
message program offers young people a free, confidential, and
anonymous way to access behavioral and peer-to-peer social support
to quit vaping. Designed with the help of teens, college students
and young adults who have attempted to or successfully quit
e-cigarettes, the program can be accessed by texting "QUIT"
to 706-222-QUIT or by visiting thetruth.com/quit. Users
receive interactive daily text messages tailored by age and
delivered around their sign-up date or quit date. Grounded in the
best available evidence for treating tobacco addiction, the program
provides encouragement, motivation, skill- and self-efficacy
building exercises, coping strategies, and information about the
risks of vaping and benefits of quitting.
CVS Health and Foundation will also be supporting a number of
classroom-based programs in 2019 including:
- A new $100,000 grant from the CVS
Health Foundation to SHAPE America will help distribute the
smokeSCREEN game from the play2PREVENT Lab at the Yale Center
for Health and Learning Games to schools across the country,
with the goal of reaching up to 500,000 students in 2019. The
smokeSCREEN game is now also available in the Apple app store and
Google Play.
- The CVS Health Foundation will support the expansion of
Stanford School of Medicine's
Tobacco Prevention Toolkit to at least eight new states, with
the goal of reaching a minimum of 150,000 additional students over
the next 18 months. The Toolkit is currently being used by
thousands of educators, reaching over 350,000 students per
year.
- DoSomething.org will partner with CVS Health to mobilize
youth on multiple digital and social media platforms to help them
educate and engage others on the e-cigarette epidemic.
Assisting Clinicians with Resources to Address e-Cigarette
Use
A $600,000 grant from the CVS
Health Foundation will support the American Academy of Family
Physicians Foundation's efforts to enhance its
signature Ask and Act program to address the rapid emergence of
Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), including vaping
devices. The updated Ask and Act program will provide family
clinicians with the resources they need to appropriately counsel
youth patients on the dangers of ENDS, as well as cessation
options.
Additionally, new support from the Aetna Foundation later this
year will bolster clinician education and training for children's
health professionals and family physicians around youth use of
e-cigarettes.
CVS Health will also support clinician training in local
communities across the country, including new grants to:
- Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas to implement e-cigarette
prevention and awareness materials into well visits for 100,000
youth and their parents.
- Phoenix Children's Hospital in Arizona to have clinicians implement the
"Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT)"
substance abuse screening program for pediatric clients and at-risk
youth.
- Ohio Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics to
incorporate a youth tobacco screening tool to assist health care
providers in identifying adolescent smoking/vaping behavior and
smoke exposure, and to equip health care providers with resources
to share with their patients and caregivers.
Providing Communities with E-Cigarette Education
In addition, CVS Health has supported tobacco-free prevention
and education in local communities across the country, including
new grants to:
- Breathe New Hampshire
will utilize funding to provide approximately 5,000 people across
the state of New Hampshire with
their signature program called Vaping Unveiled. The program
provides teens, parents, educators, healthcare providers and
community members with education on the impact of vaping and
nicotine addiction.
- Youth and Shelter Services in Iowa will use part of their funding for
educational presentations to school district staff, parents,
businesses, civic groups and the community at large in Central Iowa.
- Tobacco-Free Rhode Island, which will help
educate community stakeholders on the dangers of youth e-cigarette
use through presentations, workshops, public awareness campaigns,
and school-based initiatives.
"We are at a pivotal moment in our nation's efforts to end the
epidemic of e-cigarette use among children that is contributing to
a rise in youth smoking," said Eileen
Howard Boone, Senior Vice President, Corporate Social
Responsibility and Philanthropy and President, CVS Health
Foundation. "By collaborating with leading organizations across the
public health community to implement more aggressive strategies, we
can make a significant impact on the health of our next
generation."
Since launching Be The First in 2016, CVS Health has
reached more than nine million youth with smoking prevention
initiatives. The company and the CVS Foundation have awarded more
than $30 million in grants to
organizations that provide an array of programming that support its
focus areas, including: youth tobacco and e-cigarette prevention in
classrooms and communities across the country; supporting
clinicians with training and resources on screening youth for
tobacco use; helping youth in all 50 states become tobacco-free
advocates in their own communities; and helping more than 200
college campuses advocate for, adopt and implement smoke- and
tobacco-free policies across the country.
Funded through CVS Health and the CVS Health Foundation, Be
The First is comprised of comprehensive anti-smoking education,
tobacco control advocacy and healthy behavior programming and is a
major program within the company's new $100
million Building Healthier Communities initiative. For more
information, visit www.cvshealth.com/bethefirst.
About CVS Health
CVS Health is the nation's premier health innovation company
helping people on their path to better health. Whether in one of
its pharmacies or through its health services and plans, CVS Health
is pioneering a bold new approach to total health by making quality
care more affordable, accessible, simple and seamless. CVS Health
is community-based and locally focused, engaging consumers with the
care they need when and where they need it. The Company has more
than 9,900 retail locations, approximately 1,100 walk-in medical
clinics, a leading pharmacy benefits manager with approximately 94
million plan members, a dedicated senior pharmacy care business
serving more than one million patients per year and expanding
specialty pharmacy services. CVS Health also serves an estimated 38
million people through traditional, voluntary and consumer-directed
health insurance products and related services, including rapidly
expanding Medicare Advantage offerings and a leading standalone
Medicare Part D prescription drug plan. The Company believes its
innovative health care model increases access to quality care,
delivers better health outcomes and lowers overall health care
costs. Find more information about how CVS Health is shaping the
future of health at https://www.cvshealth.com.
Media Contact
Mary Gattuso
Mary.Gattuso@CVSHealth.com
401-770-9811
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cvs-health-announces-aggressive-new-plans-to-combat-the-significant-rise-in-e-cigarette-use-among-youth-300867815.html
SOURCE CVS Health