UAMS Addresses Issue of Tobacco and Kids

By todd

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UAMS Course for Teachers To Help Students Avoid Tobacco Use 


LITTLE ROCK – As many as 8,300 Arkansas children each year start smoking, falling prey to one of the strongest addictions known. This issue and many others will be discussed in the Partners in Behavioral Health Sciences (PIBHS) course for teachers July 6 at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).


 


“Kids aren’t just battling the lure of nicotine itself; they are bombarded with images from within our society that tell them that tobacco is accepted and that they will be accepted if they use it,” said Chris Cargile, M.D., program director for the Substance Abuse Treatment Clinic in the UAMS Department of Psychiatry. Cargile will be one of the presenters in the one-day PIBHS workshop, “This Year’s News on Tobacco and Kids.”


 


According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 5 million young people under the age of 18 who are currently alive will die prematurely from a smoking-related disease. In Arkansas, as many as 72,600 children alive today will eventually die from a tobacco-related illness.



The UAMS Center for Addiction Research was recently developed by the Colleges of Medicine and Public Health to further the understanding of the addiction process and find ways to break the cycle. In the last decade, medical treatments for drug abuse and addiction have continued to become more effective.


 


Partners in Behavioral Health Sciences (PIBHS) is a program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the UAMS College of Medicine. PIBHS focuses on mental health and substance use problems by providing current science-based information to school personnel working with children from kindergarten through high school. Its primary emphasis is on behavioral health issues affecting youth. It is offered through a collaboration of university- and community-based researchers and clinicians, primary and secondary teachers and other school personnel and students.


 


The agenda includes:


 


9:05 a.m.                      Community Overview, Kids and Tobacco News


9:30 a.m.                      Biological and Psychological Basis of Addiction


10:30 a.m.                    Arkansans for Drug Free Youth, Tobacco Youth group


12:15 p.m.                    Physical Consequences for Tobacco


1:00 p.m.                      School and Community Best Practices


 


PIBHS is in its fifth summer of providing free workshops on the UAMS campus to educate the educators. It is funded by a Science Education Partnership Award grant from the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health. About 130 school personnel have registered for the course.


 


UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a medical center, five centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has more than 2,200 students and 660 residents and is the state’s largest public employer with almost 9,000 employees. UAMS and its affiliates have an economic impact in Arkansas of $4.1 billion a year.


 


UAMS centers of excellence are the Arkansas Cancer Research Center, Harvey and Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy and Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute. 



 


 


To Assignment Editors – Dr. Cargile and other experts will be available for interviews July 6 during program breaks at 10:15 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.


 


The PIBHS courses are held in the UAMS College of Public Health, Room G219. Parking is available on the north parking deck.