VFHY will provide more than seven million dollars in programmatic funding between 2021 and 2024 to prevent and reduce youth tobacco, nicotine, and vaping product use across Virginia.

Youth Development Grants

Youth Development grantees provide evidence-based tobacco, nicotine, and vaping prevention or cessation instruction directly to Virginia youth. Each year, these programs reach about 40,000 youth statewide in settings like public schools, preschools, houses of faith, community centers, and after-school programs. 

Community Innovation Grants

Community Innovation grantees design and implement community projects to reduce tobacco, nicotine, and vaping product use among a specific youth population.  An important component of Community Innovation is to develop, implement, and document innovative practices to reduce tobacco-related health disparities among youth populations that are at an elevated risk for tobacco use.

Be alerted when new youth tobacco use prevention funding is available

Behind The Haze

Behind The Haze is VFHY’s health communications campaign currently implemented throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. Health communications campaigns are designed to target a broad audience at risk of engaging in harmful health behavior, such as the current vaping epidemic among youth.

In 2019, VFHY launched its Behind The Haze campaign which delivers educational messaging about the harmful chemicals found in vapor, the health consequences of vaping, and their link to nicotine addiction. The target audience of Behind The Haze is Virginia youth ages 13 to 18. Behind The Haze messaging reveals the dangers of formaldehyde, acetone, acetaldehyde, and other carcinogens that are found in vapor from e-cigarettes.

The Behind The Haze online presence is intended to reach the audience on the media platforms they already spend time on, which brings visibility to the message and maintains an integrated approach to the targeting strategy.

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Tobacco Prevention Research

Research is a critical component of VFHY’s comprehensive strategies to reduce and prevent youth tobacco use in Virginia. VFHY funds collaborative projects that include university and community partnerships as well as multiple disciplines to utilize expertise and resources efficiently.

Throughout VFHY’s history, funding has been used as a base for pilot projects and data to obtain additional outside funding for youth tobacco use prevention research in Virginia. We know the value of collaboration and research-sharing in the scientific community and require our grantees to participate in the Virginia Youth Tobacco Projects Coalition. We have great interest in generating new investigators’ interest in tobacco prevention research and encourage them to contact us to connect to seasoned researchers.

Trending e-commerce site Temu seems to be everywhere, from the Super Bowl to social media, offering tempting deals on clothes, toys, gadgets, and … tobacco products?

From flavored e-cigarettes to “tobacco-free” nicotine, the tobacco industry is constantly reinventing tobacco and finding new ways to entice young people

The Innovation in Child and Family Wellness Research Group at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) used VFHY funding to create a new trauma-informed approach