A five year project is proposed centered at the San Diego State University Graduate School of Public Health working with middle schools throughout San Diego County. The primary objective of Project SHOUT (Students Helping Others Understand Tobacco) is to refine and evaluate two learning theory- based interventions for preventing smokeless tobacco use among young adolescent public school students. The first of these interventions focuses only on smokeless tobacco use (SL), while the second is a """"""""generic"""""""" intervention (G) encompassing all forms of tobacco use (i.e., """"""""dipping,"""""""" """"""""chewing"""""""" and """"""""smoking""""""""). Hence, a determination of the potential for the efficient prevention of tobacco use in general is possible. Other project objectives include: (a) to ascertain the construct validity of the SHOUT interventions by carefully assessing both """"""""proximal"""""""" and """"""""distal"""""""" influence and outcome variables with respect to which treatment components are more effective for which types of subjects. A particular emphasis will be given to the stages of cognitive change youth go through in acquiring the tobacco habit, and (b) in a nested study, to determine the effectiveness of an adjunctive family-based intervention which may further serve to prevent the acquisition of tobacco related habits. The intervention phase will include four """"""""treatment"""""""" sessions and two """"""""booster"""""""" sessions in one academic year, followed by a maintenance phase, with two booster sessions per semester for the subsequent two-and-half years. Non-salaried undergraduate students will deliver the SL or G interventions to two seventh grade classrooms in each or 20 schools randomly assigned to these conditions Schools in the control (C) condition will undergo measurement only. Half of the classrooms in the SL and G conditions will be assigned to a family-based adjunct treatment intervention, whereby parents will be urged to bolster the SHOUT efforts.
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