This study is motivated by the serious public health problems posed by cigarette smoking among youth, the alarming increases in youth smoking prevalence since 1990, and the failure, to date, of school-based prevention interventions to effect long-term reductions in smoking. This project will evaluate the effectiveness of an innovative adolescent smoking cessation intervention consisting of both person-directed components (individually-tailored telephone cessation counseling, complementary interactive Web site, and self-help materials) and environment-directed components (student-led school-wide activities, events, and media, and school tobacco policy reform). This 5-year study, involving 30 high schools and 4,230 high school seniors, is a randomized controlled trial with the high school as the experimental unit. Half of the high schools will be randomized to the intervention arm of the trial; the remaining 15 high schools will serve as no-intervention controls. All smokers in one year's class of high school seniors in each of the 30 schools will be identified as study participants through an in-class baseline survey. Subjects will be followed to endpoint, 3 months after graduation, to assess their cessation status, quit attempts, reduction in level of smoking, and readiness to quit. It is clear from previous studies that a majority of teen smokers want to quit and try to do so, but with little success. The primary goal of this randomized trial is to develop and evaluate an innovative smoking cessation intervention that will help teens succeed in quitting. A positive finding would have significant implications for reducing youth smoking and, ultimately, for improving the nation's health.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 11 publications
