Those questions became even more crucial last week, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that tobacco use among teenagers increased by nearly one-third in the last six years.
Teens have their own issues, their own persuasion trigger points, their own pressures.
With teenagers, counselors aim to be more conversational. The first call generally takes about 45 minutes, with discussion about why the teen began smoking and the extent of the habit. In the next few weeks, the counselor sets up additional telephone appointments, with up to eight sessions total. Now 260 teens who have participated in the program are being followed, says Shu-Hong Zhu, assistant professor of family and preventive medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and the principal investigator for the project. Researchers want to see whether the teens who quit remain nonsmokers.