Minnesota plan for nonsmoking and health: ideas for statewide action.

ON SEPTEMBER 17, 1984, the Minnesota Department of Health released "The Minnesota Plan for Nonsmoking and Health: Report and Recommendations of the Technical Advisory Committee on Nonsmoking and Health". 1 The report contains recommendations for reducing mortality, morbidity, and costs by promoting nonsmoking in Minnesota, encouraging smoking cessation among current smokers, facilitating primary prevention of cigarette smoking among Minnesota youth, and promoting clean indoor air. The recommendations are in the broad areas of: (1) school and youth education, (2) public education, (3) regulatory measures, (4) economic incentives, and (5) information and evaluation needs. The recommendations present a statewide plan to reduce smoking prevalence through education and mass communication, public and private regulation, and economic incentives and disincentives. They are addressed to many audiences including individual smokers and nonsmokers. The underlying assumption is that no single method is sufficient; multicomponent programs are as essential on the statewide scale as they are for individual smokers. The complete text of the recommendations is contained in Table 1. Several recommendations are directed specifically to physicians and health care institutions. These are presented in boldface type. This article summarizes the report with emphasis on recommendations and policies of special interest to Minnesota physicians and health professionals.