Prevention Matters

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has named preventing and reducing tobacco use as a strategic initiative for HHS. Sebelius noted that it will require “comprehensive, sustained, and accountable tobacco control efforts based on evidence-based interventions” to lower the current smoking rate of twenty percent in the U.S.

Initial actions identified to increase efforts to prevent and reduce tobacco use include:

• Strengthening the implementation of evidence-based tobacco control interventions and policies in States and communities;
• Changing social norms around tobacco use;
• Accelerating research to expand the science base and monitor progress; and
• Leveraging HHS systems and resources to create a society free of tobacco-related disease and death.