Tobacco is the single greatest cause of premature death in the United States. Cigarettes alone kill nearly one half million Americans annually. Changing the public’s tobacco-related behavior requires a comprehensive strategy -- one with community involvement as its central element. Local organizations must be armed with the latest information and methods known to be most effective if they are to fight, advocate, and educate successfully. Community involvement is the key to keeping cigarettes out of adolescent hands, to protecting the public from second-hand smoke, and to encouraging smokers to abandon tobacco use. Local organizations—the agents of community involvement—conduct programs on the frontlines of tobacco control, and, to the degree that they are strengthened, tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke will decline.

The Vanguard Training and Orientation Guide for Community-Based Organizations will be a simple-to-use, easy-to-update, comprehensive learning tool. It will be the gateway resource for community-based program managers, and will provide a comprehensive orientation to new staff and to new programs.

This web site focuses on the three main tobacco control interventions:

1. promoting cessation,
2. preventing youth initiation,
3. protecting non-smokers’ rights.