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Youth Voice: Why Young People Should Help Design the Policies That Affect Them
Youth nicotine policy is designed by adults—without input from the young people it affects. Including youth voices in policy design would produce policies that are more credible, more acceptable, and more effective.
Youth nicotine policy is made by middle-aged researchers, advocates, and regulators—people whose experience of adolescence, if they remember it, is decades out of date. **Young people are the target of youth nicotine policy—and they are excluded from its design. Including youth voices—through advisory committees, participatory research, and consultation processes—would produce policies that are more credible to the target audience, more acceptable to the affected population, and more effective at achieving their goals.**
