Young people continue to become addicted to tobacco despite global and local tobacco control efforts. The prevention of initiation is a key strategy in addressing youth tobacco use. However, many teens will continue to experiment with, and become addicted to, tobacco. Cessation strategies are therefore equally important in youth tobacco control. Encouragingly, most young smokers want to quit. However, specific youth cessation interventions have been largely overlooked in the literature until recently.

This study aims to investigate the characteristics of people under 18 years of age who call New Zealand's national, publicly funded, smoking cessation telephone counseling service, Quitline. Little is known about this group at present.

Method:

New under-18 callers to Quitline in 2004 or 2005 (n=2173), are being analysed to ascertain demographic and smoking history characteristics, using routinely collected data. These are being compared with two groups: a random sample of 2000 adult (18 years and over) callers to Quitline during the same period, and a sample of the general under-18 population in NZ obtained from an annual school-based survey about smoking habits.

Results:

Data are currently being analysed and results will be available by April.

Conclusions:

Conclusions will be available by April.

Implications:

Under-18 cessation requires improvement within tobacco control in New Zealand and many other countries. Identification of youth subgroups that are under-represented in New Zealand's major tobacco cessation programme is required before strategies can be developed that address such gaps.