Virginia youth tobacco project to host forum on tobacco use by young people

By Lorraine Cichowski and J. Randy Kock

RICHMOND, Va. – The Virginia Youth Tobacco Project, coordinated by Virginia Commonwealth University, will hold its first statewide research conference March 24-25.  A pre-conference grant-writing workshop will be held on March 23.

The Virginia Forum on Youth Tobacco Use: From Research to Practice will showcase research conducted under the auspices of the VYTP, a coalition of Virginia universities originated by the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation to study why young people begin to smoke and why some become addicted to nicotine in tobacco products.

The conference will feature presentations by VYTP researchers from around the state and nationally prominent experts, including Dr. Kenneth Kendler from the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics at VCU, Dr. Steven Sussman from the Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Hospital Research Institute in Los Angeles and Dr. Richard Clayton of the Center for Prevention Research at the University of Kentucky.

Among the panel discussions will be sessions on nicotine and the adolescent brain, sex differences and adolescent tobacco use, the role of emotion in youths' response to advertising, retailer compliance with state laws restricting access to tobacco products and evaluating tobacco prevention programs for youths. An agenda is available at www.vytp.vcu.edu/conference2004.html.

The VYTP team includes researchers from VCU, the University of Virginia, James Madison University, Virginia Tech, the College of William and Mary and George Mason University. The project is funded by the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation, created by the General Assembly in 1999 to distribute part of the money Virginia will receive from tobacco product manufacturers under a Master Settlement Agreement.

The conference will be held at the Omni Hotel in Richmond. For registration information, please contact Stephanie Hart at slhart@vcu.edu.