Tobacco use is the number one preventable cause of death in the United States. Despite widespread knowledge of the negative health effects of smoking, the prevalence of smoking among youth remains high. There is a pressing need for the development of effective and easily accessible smoking cessation programs for youth. The long-term goal of the present project is to develop an effective school-based behavioral smoking cessation program for adolescents. The following specific aims are proposed: 1) Determine motivational components that should be included in a school-based adolescent smoking cessation program by a) surveying adolescent smokers regarding barriers to making a quit attempt and b) having adolescent smokers rate the potency of a number of potential motivational topics. 2) Determine strategic components that should be included in a school-based adolescent smoking cessation program by a) monitoring quit attempts by adolescents that occur during the research project, and b) having adolescent smokers rate the usefulness of potential strategic topics (e.g., how to prepare for a quit attempt). 3) Develop a behavioral smoking cessation program for adolescents based on assessment results and evaluate the program for one school year. A total of 300 adolescent smokers will be recruited to participate in the assessment portion of the project (specific aims 1 and 2), and an additional 150 adolescent smokers will be recruited to participate in and evaluate the newly developed cessation program.
| Yurasek, Ali M; Robinson, Leslie A; Parra, Gilbert (2016) Ethnic and Gender differences in Strategies Used by Adolescents when Attempting to Quit or Reduce Smoking. J Child Adolesc Subst Abuse 25:252-259 |
