The Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation (OTPF) was created from a small portion of the master settlement monies to help prevent and control the use of tobacco in Ohio

CHARGE (Mission):

OTPF is charged with reducing tobacco use among Ohioans, with an emphasis on youth, minority and regional populations, pregnant women, and others who may be disproportionately affected by the use of tobacco.

PRIORITY AREAS:

The majority of OTPF's work falls within
the following three categories: community
grants, counter-marketing, and the Ohio
Tobacco Quit Line.

Community Grants
Community grants are a series of OTPF programs that involve people in the war against tobacco in their homes, at schools, and through their places of worship, entertainment venues, and other public organizations. OTPF's 67 grantees employ more than 200 highly-trained Ohioans and provide services in nearly all 88 Ohio counties.  The purpose of these grants is to help Ohio's communities execute evidence-based programs and build tobacco control infrastructures at the local level.

In an effort to institutionalize tobacco cessation among agencies serving some of Ohio's most vulnerable tobacco use populations, OTPF also has granted funding to the Ohio Commission on Minority Health, Ohio Department of Health, Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services, and the Ohio Department of Mental Health.

It is also important to note that an OTPF grant funded SmokeFree Columbus, which has led to the protection of more than one million Ohioans from secondhand smoke exposure.  Other clean indoor air grants are in progress.

Counter-Marketing / stand
Counter-marketing is OTPF's effort to combat the effects of marketing by the tobacco industry, an industry that currently spends $779 million each year targeting Ohioans alone.  OTPF's "by kids, for kids" counter-marketing campaign is called stand, and it is a multidimensional initiative that relies on bold, edgy communications to reach out to Ohio's youth, primarily kids ages 11-17, empowering them to take their own stand against tobacco where they live, learn and play.

In terms of evaluating the campaign, Ohio is one of the first states to conduct a longitudinal survey of a group of youth over time to determine the impact of stand on actual smoking behavior.  The exciting findings show:

• Ohio youth ages 15 to 17 who were aware of stand when first surveyed were 75% less likely than those who were not to have tried smoking nearly two years later.
• All Ohio youth who identified with the stand brand when first surveyed were 34 percent less likely to try smoking than those who did not nearly two years later.

In the future, stand will continue to reach Ohio kids in fresh and impactful ways.  In
2006, the program has evolved to help Ohioans ages 18 to 24 resist using tobacco products through the "debunkify" campaign.

Ohio Tobacco Quit Line (1-800-QUIT-NOW)

OTPF launched the Ohio Tobacco Quit Line (1-800-QUIT-NOW) statewide in late 2004 to offer all Ohioans free telephone counseling services, in both English and Spanish, to help tobacco users are five times more likely to quit. The Quit Line offers callers an intensive counseling program provided over the telephone by highly trained counselors.  Since launch, more than 78,000 Ohioans have enrolled in the Quit Line service. 

In a groundbreaking partnership with leading healthcare insurance companies in Ohio, the Quit Line now offers qualified enrollees eight weeks of free nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) patches to increase their likelihood of quitting. The cost is shared by OTPF and the four insurance companies participating to date as well as more than 21 employers, pension funds, etc., who have joined the program.

Ohioans have responded to this program by the thousands, and initial end-of-program quit rates are encouraging at more than 42 percent. 

To serve Ohioans who are uninsured, OTPF launched a program in 2006 to offer reduced cost patches to enrollees in the Quit Line without healthcare insurance.  This innovative coupon program partners OTPF with pharmacies to fulfill two four-week supplies of patches for only $25 each. In the spring to 2007 OTPF announced 2 weeks of free patches to any Ohioan enrolled into the Quit-Line.

OTPF's plans for the Quit Line include expanding public/private partnerships with insurance companies and employers, developing partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, and continuing outreach to healthcare professionals across Ohio to create an efficient referral network.

FUNDING (Amount/Process):

In 1998, along with 45 other states, Ohio negotiated a Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) designed to correct past and future injuries caused by tobacco, giving our state the chance to start reversing the devastation caused by tobacco use. In February 2000, the Ohio General Assembly passed comprehensive legislation allocating the money Ohio receives as stated in the MSA. And in March 2000, Governor Bob Taft signed Senate Bill 192, which created the Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation and several other trust funds. OTPF is considered a "quasi-governmental" state agency.

OTPF was designed to receive "front-loaded" payments from the MSA for the first six years with a final payment in 2012, creating a $1.2 billion endowment that could support a tobacco control program into perpetuity. Due to shortages in the state budget, however, approximately $568 million intended for the Foundation's endowment was appropriated to other state programs.

Currently, OTPF has approximately $270 million in its endowment and is spending both investment income and principal.  In August 2005, the OTPF Board of Trustees decided to cut OTPF's operating budget by more than 11 percent and committed to sustaining the program for a minimum of ten years. More recently, the Board set its fiscal year 2007 budget at approximately $45 million and capped future budgets at that level.

The Board is developing a plan to leverage public/private partnerships and external grant funding, as well as continuously evaluating its program priorities and budget based on program effectiveness and market conditions.

GOVERNANCE (Board, Steering Committee):

OTPF is governed by a 19-member Board of Trustees appointed by the Governor and legislative leadership and four non-voting Ohio legislators. The board's responsibility is to distribute grant monies to public and private organizations and implement direct statewide interventions such as counter-marketing to reduce tobacco use among all Ohioans. The board is also charged with providing critical oversight to all of the Foundation's programs to help ensure the objectives of tobacco use reduction are met.