Escape the Vape

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2023

The news of e-cigarette, vape, and other tobacco product use growing to unprecedented numbers among the youth and young adult population is nothing new for public health, health care, and even education professionals. However, North Carolina continues to lag behind the rest of the country when it comes to tobacco control policies, perpetuating the high percent of high school students who use tobacco products. To address this issue, New Hanover County Health and Human Services took initiative to partner with the local school system to implement programs across the school district that aim to both encourage cessation among current users and prevent future tobacco-use initiation. The larger county-wide initiative, called Escape the Vape, includes several components to reflect the socio-ecological approach to health behavior change. The primary goal of Escape the Vape is to support the prevention and cessation of tobacco product use by middle and high school students in New Hanover County. After kicking off the program in August of 2022, the school district had successfully implemented the evidence-based vaping prevention curriculum in all middle school and high school health and physical education classes and completed over 150 health coaching sessions with students currently using tobacco products by January of 2023.