With the support from the Cook County Department of Public Health, The Chapter is pleased to offer the program: "Parental Tobacco Cessation and Healthier Kids" in suburban Cook County. Starting in the spring of 2001, training sessions have been offered at suburban Cook County hospitals and at pediatric residency programs for pediatricians, nurses, and pediatric office staff.

The program's goal is to arm physicians with methods to increase tobacco cessation rates in their patient's parents. When a mother smokes during pregnancy, she has a higher risk of having a premature baby or a baby who is not fully developed. Children who breathe in someone else's cigarette smoke have a higher risk of getting ear infections and hearing problems, upper respiratory infections, bronchitis and pneumonia, and asthma. Furthermore, the single highest risk factor for adolescent smoking is a parent or family member who smokes.

Each physician training event consists of a 1-hour session to introduce attendees to statistics on smoking prevalence and its effects and practical strategies for implementing cessation programs in the pediatric office. Training is based on the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research Clinical Practice Guidelines for Smoking Cessation and delivered using components of the Make Yours a Fresh Start Family program developed by the American Cancer Society and the Pennsylvania Department of Health. A full range of program materials including a study guide, waiting room magazines, a poster, and references are provided to each attendee.

The program has been an effective tool to help pediatricians increase tobacco cessation rates among parents and decrease second hand smoke related illness among children.

I would also like to tell you about a program in which ICAAP partnered with the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians to create a program educating primary care providers to help prevent and treat teenage smoking.

As you know 90 percent of todays adult smokers took up the habit before they turned 18. Here in Illinois, 34 percent of our high school students are current smokers. These young people are aware of mass media anti-tobacco messages, yet they generally do not receive personal attention or concrete intervention strategies from authority figures they respect. Physicians can play this role in the lives of youth, but most lack the information and training to make tobacco use intervention a key ingredient in their health care strategies. Together, Illinois pediatricians and family physicians developed a program that is evidence-based, physician-friendly and can be easily shared and replicated around the country.

The project, "Adolescent Tobacco Use – Prevention and Cessation: Strategies for Primary Care Providers," began on November 1, 2001, as the result of a grant awarded to the project's two co-sponsors, the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (ICAAP) and the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians (IAFP). The grant funding was provided by the Illinois Department of Public Health from money allocated by the State from the Illinois Master Settlement Agreement receipts for fiscal year 2002. The project was to be completed by June 30, 2002, the end of the fiscal year.

The goals of the project were to train primary care medical professionals to proactively request information about their young patients' tobacco use, utilize several medical treatments and social interventions to increase cessation attempts among adolescent patients, and maintain their support of cessation strategies in subsequent patient visits.

ICAAP and IAFP proposed and created educational pieces and programs during this grant period. We ran a needs assessment survey and also conducted Expert Panel Meeting of healthcare providers with extensive experience in tobacco cessation. We conducted Speaker Training via Teleconferences in which approximately 80 physicians were trained as speakers to teach this program to other primary care providers.

With the grant funding from IDPH, and the knowledge and consensus of the six member Expert Panel, we were able to produce many educational materials in the spring of 2002. Please see the copies of all these products in your black folder.

With the IDPH funding we were also able to offer programs to train physicians in formats and venues across the state including:

• Hospital and Grand Rounds presentations
• Office-Based Presentations at pediatric practices
• "Medicine For Today" sites
• Residency programs

So far, more than 1,730 health professionals (including pediatricians, family physicians, residents, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners) have attended a live program, read the monograph or guideline, or listened to the audio program.  We have six more live presentations scheduled for the coming months.

Now for the bad news – IDPH planned to give us a grant to continue implementing, marketing and disseminating this program in fiscal year 2003, which began this past July. However, due to the unexpected government depletion of the tobacco settlement funding along with the state's current budget woes, we have recently been notified that they may not fulfill the agreement. Unfortunately, ICAAP and IAFP now have a developed program with a great deal of physician and allied health professional interest but no resources with which to carry out the program.

But our program is here, it's solid and can be implemented instantly… with the necessary funding. We are hopeful that the economy will improve, but hope that the federal government will make smoking cessation a priority. We can't afford to wait for the states to take action.

Thank You.