The HealthQuest program is being supported by the Koop Institute while it is in its implementation phase. In 1995, the National Cancer Institute funded Dartmouth Medical School to implement HealthQuest, a four year pilot program involving two rural Vermont K-12 schools. In an effort to reduce tobacco use, students will design their own tobacco prevention interventions by solving age-appropriate problems. If this pilot is successful, investigators hope to make HealthQuest a nationwide program. Every day more than 3,000 adolescents smoke their first cigarette.
Tobacco use is the biggest preventable cause of premature death in the United States.
Tobacco-related mortality and morbidity cost 65 billion dollars per year. Nearly 800 rural school children and their teachers are expected to participate. The Blue Mountain Union School in Wells River, VT, will be the control school. In the third year, HealthQuest will be implemented in two rural schools in North Carolina.