Cigarette smoking is one of the most important public health problems facing America, accounting for an estimated 430,000 deaths per year. while considerable progress has been made in recent years toward the development of effective smoking prevention approaches, those efforts have not yet been translated into curricula which schools can use. Not surprisingly, smoking prevalence rates among youth have remained largely unchanged over the past decade, despite substantial declines among adults. This Phase l SBIR application is intended to remedy that situation by providing commercially viable smoking prevention curriculum materials for elementary school students in grades 4, 5, and 6. These materials will be based on a state-of-the-art smoking prevention approach which includes resistance skills training and training in an array of general life skills. The model upon which the smoking prevention curriculum materials to be developed under this SBIR has been demonstrated to reduce cigarette smoking by up to 87%. These curriculum materials will be designed to be used either alone or in combination with the junior high school curriculum materials currently being developed under another SBIR. The resulting product will be an attractive and easy-to-use set of smoking prevention materials for elementary school children which can be marketed in the US and Canada.
