Background and Purpose: ASSIST represents a collaborative effort between the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, along with state and local health departments and other voluntary organizations to develop comprehensive tobacco control programs in up to 20 states and metropolitan areas. Its purpose is to demonstrate that the wide-spread, coordinated application of the best available strategies to prevent and control tobacco use will significantly accelerate the current downward trend in smoking and tobacco use, thereby reducing the number and rate of tobacco-related cancers in the United States. The ASSIST intervention model is based on proven smoking prevention and control methods developed within the National Cancer Institute's intervention trials and other smoking and behavioral research. Objectives: The primary objective of ASSIST is to demonstrate and evaluate ways to accelerate the decline in smoking prevalence in all ASSIST sites combined to less than 15% of adults by the year 2000. The secondary objective is to reduce by 50% the rates of smoking initiation among adolescents in all award sites by the year 2000. Targets for ASSIST Intervention: Populations whose smoking prevalence rates remain a problem will be emphasized in ASSIST intervention sites. Included are groups in which smoking rates are elevated relative to the majority population and groups which have displayed slower rates of decline (e.g., women, the medically underserved, the less educated, and several ethnic minority populations). ASSIST Interventions: Through ASSIST, media, policy, and cessation support will be delivered to target groups through the health care system, schools, the worksite, and other channels. Specific interventions include training health care providers to deliver brief cessation counseling, implementing smoke-free policies in schools and worksites, and enhancing media coverage of tobacco use issues.
