Draft Washington State Tobacco and Vapor Product Prevention and Control Strategic Direction
The Washington State Tobacco and Vapor Product Prevention and Control Program, Gay City Health Project and Rede Group have been working with stakeholders over the past several months to identify strategic priorities for Tobacco and Vapor Product Prevention & Control in Washington State. Below are the draft priorities that were developed based on the input of stakeholders across the state through a series of interviews, small group discussions and a prioritization session. The next step is to collect comments and feedback on these priorities.
Comments will be accepted through Wednesday, February 12, 2020
There are multiple ways you can provide your feedback on these proposed strategies:
· Email or call Becky Wright at the Rede Group at becky.wright@redegroup.co or 503-764-9696
Attend one of the following two webinars (they have the same content):
1. Wednesday, February 5, 2020, 10-11:
Register in advance for this meeting: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/upYrcuuprTMuE0OQYudt_rjZ2NRvJAjesQ.
2. Thursday, February 6, 2020, 2-3:
Register in advance for this meeting: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUkc-uprjosXQNrzx3zuBCqABCVe4mcOQ.
Three important items for all reviewers
1. Items in this draft of strategies and tactics must be prioritized and some may be removed in the final plan if they are not deemed (by the larger group) essential and timely. In reviewing this plan, consider which items are most important to you and your community. Ask yourself, if we could only accomplish three things as a commercial tobacco and vapor prevention community, what would those three things be?
2. This set strategies and tactics is meant to provide the strategic direction for the entire tobacco and vapor prevention movement in Washington; it is not a workplan for the state tobacco and vapor prevention program. If there are critical items that fall outside the purview or capacity of government, they will need to be led by another agency.
3. Once the Strategic direction is finalized, groups will need to work together to delineate work plans, including identifying lead agencies for each strategy and tactic. The state tobacco and vapor prevention program will act as a convener for discussions to assist in developing workplans.
----DRAFT----
Washington State Tobacco and Vapor Product Prevention and Control Strategic Plan
Goal 1: Reduce tobacco related disparities
Strategy 1.1: Establish tobacco and vapor product prevention as a critical investment in Washington State. Increase state investment to a minimum of 25% of CDC recommended funding
Tactics:
1. Informed and co-led by local communities, priority populations, and tribes, educate decision-makers on, and establish the importance of, equity-rooted tobacco and vapor prevention programming and strategies
Strategy 1.2: Ensure that community-informed approaches inform program development and funding allocation to local communities, tribes, and priority populations
Tactics:
1. Support organizations serving communities experiencing health disparities and their partners to lead and co-create tobacco and vapor product prevention and cessation strategies that meet the unique cultural and geographic needs of specific populations
2. Develop program design models that allow for flexibility in program development/implementation to meet local needs, while ensuring sound principles of public health prevention and health equity are centered in decisions
Strategy 1.3: Utilize a Social Determinants of Health framework, incorporating an ACES/Trauma-informed approach, into entire program
Tactics:
1. Establish frameworks and expectations for Trauma Informed Approaches that can be applied systemically in tobacco and vapor prevention programs
Strategy 1.4: Develop appropriate, effective tools to eliminate tobacco related health inequities
Tactics:
1. Conduct an external (using third-party standard) equity analysis of tobacco and vapor product prevention and control state programming
2. Leverage community-based, culturally-grounded, and participatory research methods to find out what is working in communities and why
3. Build partnerships and ensure coordination between public agencies and community groups to better understand effective and equitable data collection methods and assessments of results, including data-related challenges and gaps
4. Host an equity tobacco and vapor product prevention and control summit
5. Develop faith-based and intergenerational connection tool kits that build resilience for addressing and overcoming unhealthy behaviors
6. Identify and utilize higher education resources and research tools for local data gathering
Goal 2: Prevent tobacco use among young people with emphasis on nicotine consumed through electronic delivery devices/vapor products
Strategy 2.1: Educate youth and young adults
Tactics:
1. Develop and deploy social and earned media tools (templates and readymade materials) for use in statewide and local communications efforts to raise awareness and educate about:
a. Population level and individual harms associated with tobacco and vapor product use
b. Impact of youth use of tobacco and vapor products
c. Nicotine addiction
d. Tobacco industry tactics in promoting tobacco and vapor product use
e. State and local policy options to protect the public’s health
2. Design and implement a mass media communications campaign that includes a social media component and focuses on Positive Community Norms
3. Develop ready to go materials/tools/campaigns that can be tailored for different communities (e.g. rural)
4. Develop community-based trainings on tobacco/vaping issues for multiple audiences, including colleges and military communities
5. Build opportunities for youth leadership
Strategy 2.2: Build the capacity of early learning providers, K-12 schools, and colleges and universities to raise awareness and prevent use of tobacco and vapor products
Tactics:
1. Support the development, implementation and enforcement of tobacco and vapor product prevention policies for school districts, colleges, and universities
2. Identify and offer technical assistance to prevention specialists/interventionists in K-12 schools
3. Partner with early learning providers to offer resources
4. Champion or amplify efforts to utilize existing cross-agency and program infrastructure to identify and implement evidence-based curriculum in schools
Strategy 2.3: Address regulatory needs for commercial tobacco and electronic cigarettes/vapor products including point-of- sale, price, possession and nicotine content in vapor products.
Tactics:
1. Build local, regional and statewide traditional and nontraditional champions, partnerships and coalitions
2. Increase the number of state and local laws and ordinances that:
a. Remove youth penalties for possession of tobacco/vapor products
b. Extend flavored tobacco and vapor product restrictions
c. Restore local control to allow for cigarette/other tobacco product regulations that are stronger than the state law
d. Update/increase tobacco and vapor product taxes with dedicated funding to comprehensive tobacco and vapor product prevention and control programming
e. Limit the amount of nicotine in vapor products
f. Regulate the time, place and manner of tobacco and vapor product advertising
3. Increase local and state capacity for the enforcement of existing laws and policies around youth access to tobacco products at the point of sale
Goal 3: Leverage resources for promoting and supporting tobacco cessation
Strategy 3.1: Increase access to cessation resources
Tactics:
1. Explore frameworks for adapting local tobacco cessation programs to meet standards of cultural agility and local need
2. Improve public and private health insurance coverage of evidence-based tobacco cessation counseling and medications (this item was added after community engagement)
3. Streamline access to existing cessation resources (e.g., through electronic referrals to Washington State Tobacco Quitline)
Strategy 3.2: Build health care provider knowledge, skills, and capacity for treating tobacco dependence and nicotine addiction
Tactics:
1. Promote use of tools for health care providers to better understand the importance of treating tobacco dependence to health outcomes (e.g., clinical quality measures)
2. Link health care providers, including school-based health centers, clinicians, pharmacists, health navigators, and community health workers, with appropriate training in treating tobacco dependence and nicotine addiction
3. Engage behavioral health agencies to co-treat nicotine addiction during substance abuse treatment and promote complete abstinence and long-term recovery
Strategy 3.3: Provide population-level tobacco cessation services to underserved populations
Tactics:
1. Offer and continuously improve service quality of Washington State Tobacco Quitline
2. Offer smartphone application for tobacco and vaping cessation, evaluating for reach and effectiveness
3. Monitor the development of youth tobacco and vapor product cessation resources and services available from state and national research partners; ensure dissemination of promising practices to healthcare partners
Goal 4: Eliminate exposure to secondhand and thirdhand smoke and electronic delivery devices/vape emissions
Strategy 4.1: Increase tobacco and vape- free environments
Tactics:
1. Continue local efforts to create, implement and enforce tobacco and vape free environments with an emphasis on:
a. Local vaping in public places policies
b. Multiunit housing
c. Mental and behavioral health treatment facilities
d. Juvenile and adult correctional facilities
e. Private worksites
f. County, city and state government facilities, grounds and parks
2. Increase public awareness about the toxicity and other environmental impacts of commercial tobacco and vapor product consumption and waste (This item was added after community engagement)
Strategy 4.2: Provide consistent and effective enforcement of tobacco, and vaping regulations
Tactics
1. Provide support to local health departments in the enforcement of the state No Smoking in Public Places Law
2. Ensure parity with smoking in public places laws by supporting local adoption, implementation and enforcement of no-vaping in public places ordinances
3. Improve the enforcement of the state No Smoking in Public Places Law in smoking/vaping lounges
4. Study and monitor the vapor product black market