Message from Donna E. Shalala Secretary of Health and Human Services:

This nation is faced with many challenges in its efforts to improve the health status of all people living in the United States. One of the biggest challenges is to remedy the fact that approximately one-fourth of our adults continue to smoke and that tobacco use rates among our youth have increased since the early 1990s. Tobacco use, particularly cigarette smoking, remains the leading cause of preventable illness and death in this country. Our overall success in improving the health status of the U.S. population thus depends greatly on achieving dramatic reductions in the rate of tobacco use among both adults and young people. Reducing tobacco use is a key component of Healthy People 2010, the national action plan for improving the health of all Americans for the first decade of the 21st century. No fewer than 21 specific national health objectives related to tobacco are listed, including a goal to more than halve the current rates of tobacco use among young people and adults. Attaining all of the Healthy People 2010 tobacco use objectives will require significant commitment and progress in numerous areas. This Surgeon General's report provides a major resource in our national efforts to achieve the Healthy People 2010 tobacco use objectives. The research findings reviewed indicate that many strategies and approaches have been shown to be effective in preventing tobacco use among young people and in helping tobacco users end their addiction. The challenge to public health professionals, health care systems, and other partners in our national prevention effort is to implement these proven approaches. Through the Secretary's Initiative to Prevent Tobacco Use Among Teens and Preteens, the Department works with federal and nonfederal efforts to reduce young people's demand for tobacco products. This Surgeon General's report highlights additional strategies and approaches that this initiative can expand upon. Only by a coordinated national effort will the tobacco use rates among our young people be reduced. Each day that we delay in developing a comprehensive national response to this problem, 3,000 additional teens and preteens become regular smokers. That statistic poses an urgent public health challenge and -- given that we have at hand numerous strategies proven to be effective -- a moral imperative.

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