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ASSIST INTERVENTION: ASSIST is a community-based intervention directed by state and local volunteer coalitions which plan and implement tobacco control activities. Through ASSIST, media and policy advocacy interventions will be directed at the community using the health care system, schools, worksites, and other community channels. Broad, sweeping changes in policies that regulate where tobacco can be used are key to changing tile social environment. Public support for tobacco control policies can be strengthened by using the media and media advocacy techniques to increase coverage of these issues and to reinforce the emerging non-smoking norm. Interventions involving policy and media create a demand for program services by community providers. With the exception of training health care providers to deliver brief cessation counseling, ASSIST promotes but does not provide funds to develop or provide program services. Instead, it will mobilize and activate community resources for smoking prevention and cessation. For example, the ACS will provide support with educational materials, and the efforts of an active network of more than 800,000 volunteers and 1,000 local units in the 17 ASSIST sites. Tile focus on policy and media advocacy rather than on program services will allow limited resources to be allocated to those interventions that have the greatest potential for reducing smoking prevalence in ASSIST sites.

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IMPACT OF ASSIST. Ninety-one million Americans from across the country, including 18 million smokers, will be reached by ASSIST. More than 4.5 million extra adults will quit smoking and 2 million adolescents will be prevented from becoming addicted. Overall, it is expected that 1.2 million premature deaths will be averted, including, 422,000 deaths from lung cancer.