Tobacco Prevention & Control Program

Reducing the smoking rates of New Hampshire residents, through the use of evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies, is a public health priority in New Hampshire.

Tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States and New Hampshire. The Tobacco Prevention and Control Program (TPCP) is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is dedicated to the implementation of a comprehensive program designed to reduce the prevalence and consumption of tobacco use in New Hampshire.

The Program's primary goals are to: prevent NH youth from beginning to use tobacco; eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke; promote quitting tobacco among users; and prioritize efforts to reach those most affected by tobacco.

Watch a video about how text4baby helped one local mom quit smoking....

TPCP carries out a number of strategies to achieve its goals:

• Conducts surveys to measure tobacco use among New Hampshire residents, as well as to monitor attitudes, knowledge and practices regarding tobacco use in New Hampshire.
• Monitors compliance with the NH Indoor Smoking Act.
• Provides educational materials to the public and to health care providers on a variety of tobacco use and dependency topics ranging from preventing youth from starting to use tobacco to helping addicted tobacco users to seek treatment.

Exposure To Tobacco Smoke Causes Immediate Damage, Says New Surgeon General's Report
Report focuses on how tobacco smoke causes disease

Exposure to tobacco smoke – even occasional smoking or secondhand smoke – causes immediate damage to your body that can lead to serious illness or death, according to a report released by U.S. Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin. The comprehensive scientific report – Benjamin's first Surgeon General's report and the 30th tobacco-related Surgeon General's report issued since 1964 – describes pathways by which tobacco smoke damages the human body and leads to disease and death.

The report, How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease, finds that cellular damage and tissue inflammation from tobacco smoke are immediate, and that repeated exposure weakens the body's ability to heal the damage.