ADVISORY

U.S. Surgeon General to deliver tobacco prevention speech at training institute in Portland  

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher’s keynote address:

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher will deliver the keynote address at the seventh annual Tobacco Use Prevention Training Institute. (The training institute will take place from Aug. 19 through 24.) Satcher issued "Women and Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General" last March, a report that said women now account for 39 percent of all smoking-related deaths each year in the United States. Satcher issued the Surgeon General’s report on "Reducing Tobacco Use" at the 11^th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Chicago in August 2000. The report was the first comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of different interventions in reducing tobacco use.

Satcher has said that the United States could cut the rate of smoking among teens and adults in half by 2010 if the nation would fully implement anti-smoking programs using effective approaches already available.

Satcher comes to Oregon at a time when Oregon’s tobacco prevention and education program has become one of the most successful in the country, setting an example for much of the country. Since the start of the program, eighth-grade smoking has decreased 40 percent. Adult smoking is down. Every year, one billion fewer cigarettes are sold in Oregon because of this program. And more and more people are protected from the dangers of secondhand smoke.

"Dr. Satcher’s presence gives important recognition to the hard work of public health professionals, whose efforts are crucial to reducing tobacco-related health problems," said Dr. Miriam Settle, deputy director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and principal investigator for the Tobacco Use Prevention Training Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Office on Smoking and Health directs the U.S. government’s tobacco and health activities, including developing and distributing the Surgeon General’s reports on smoking and health, coordinating a national public information and education program on tobacco use and health, coordinating tobacco education and research efforts within the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as providing financial and technical assistance to states and national organizations on tobacco-related issues.

The yearly Tobacco Use Prevention Training Institute is sponsored by the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at UNC-Chapel Hill and the U.S. CDC Office on Smoking and Health. The UNC-Chapel Hill center’s mission is to improve health through interdisciplinary research, teaching and public service. The university’s schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and public health are the key components of the center.

The Tobacco Use Prevention Training Institute, a multidisciplinary training and education program, provides professionals working in tobacco use prevention with the field’s most current information and strengthens relationships with leading researchers.

In previous years, the institutes have been held in Chapel Hill, N.C.; St. Louis; Albuquerque; Atlanta; and Denver. More than 300 professionals representing 45 states, the District of Columbia, three U.S. territories, Canada and Africa attended last year’s institute in Denver.

For more information, click on www.tupti.org.

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