Tobacco use remains the No. 1 leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

Since almost 90 percent of tobacco users start before the age of 18, youth tobacco use prevention and cessation has become a priority for public health

programs.

To prevent students from initiating tobacco use and encourage

users to quit, Tobacco Free Butler County is promoting programs for school-age children and teens.

Lisa Miller is a community health educator with Adagio Health in Butler and provides programs to students in both private and public schools.

She is a graduate of Penn State University and has a genuine passion for educating youth on the dangers of using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.

Project Alert is an evidence-based drug prevention program for middle school youth. The goal of the program is to reduce the use of dangerous substances by keeping nonusers from trying them, and experimenters from becoming regular users.

It tells students why some people use drugs and why most people don’t; how to recognize the pressures on teenagers to use drugs; and how to resist these pressures.

Project Alert uses videos, roleplay, games, and group activities throughout the 11-session program.

Three booster sessions are offered the following year to reinforce lessons and practice

resistance skills.

Miller presented Project Alert in eight schools in Butler County with about 600 students completing the program.

Why Animals Don’t Smoke is a program for children in preschool through first grade that uses animal posters to reinforce the dangers of smoking and its effect on the body.

It uses examples such as smoking would make a giraffe’s long throat very sore; secondhand

smoke would hurt a goat’s kids; chewing tobacco would hurt a cow’s mouth and make it hard to chew grass. It is 30 minutes to one hour long. A brochure is provided to enable students to share the messages at home.

Why animals Don’t Smoke was offered to eight groups and organizations with about 160 youth completing the program.

Project X is a school assembly, anti-tobacco program geared toward fourth- and fifth-grade students. Through an interactive multimedia presentation, students learn harmful and dangerous effects of tobacco.

The program is delivered by a health educator in the role of a special agent from “The Agency,” who focuses on different forms of tobacco, social influences, chemicals in tobacco smoke, shortand long-term effects of tobacco use, addiction, refusal skills and decision-making.

Two assemblies were conducted in Butler County reaching about 275 students.

In addition to school-based programming, Miller participates

in the Tobacco Free Butler County Coalition’s outreach services.

When students and parents see Miller in the community, they often share lessons learned and express their appreciation for her enthusiasm and educational services.

Additional school-based, tobacco prevention and cessation programs include:

■ Teens Against Tobacco Use (TATU), a peer mentoring, tobacco education program to help teens develop strong leadership skills while influencing younger children to live tobacco-free lives;

■ BUSTED!, which is Pennsylvania’s official youth anti-tobacco movement, and

■ Not-On-Tobacco (N-O-T) Program, a 10-session program specifically designed to help teens stop smoking.

These programs are offered to schools by the Community Health Challenge of Southwest Pennsylvania.