Cancer is the second leading killer in the United States. To achieve the National Cancer Institute's goal of 50% reduction in cancer mortality by the year 2000, prevention education will need to be more accessible to and elicit behavior change from more people. Considering that smoking is the single most important preventable cause of illness and premature death in the United States, it is more than appropriate to pursue innovative techniques for providing tobacco use prevention. Children and youth are the population which are at the greatest risk for adopting a tobacco use habit. Since age at tobacco initiation continues to drop while percent of smokers in teens continues to rise, it is clear that children need information and behavioral guidance to help prevent the onset on tobacco use. Furthermore, they need a way to get this information that they find exciting, engaging, and challenging. We propose electronic lessons and activities on tobacco use prevention on a cross platform CD-ROM and on World-Wide Web site. Targeted to 10-12 year old children, the program will be distributed throughout schools nationwide, with additional opportunities for distribution in hospital-based community education programs, public health agencies, community-based outreach programs, museums, and private homes.
