Proven effective tobacco prevention interventions quite often are never implemented at community or school levels. Research organizations charged with dissemination of effective interventions are often unfamiliar with effective dissemination strategies. Therefore, it is important to identify effective dissemination strategies for proven and/or promising tobacco education curricula. Consider This (www.considerthisusa.net ), was developed as an educational tool to reduce smoking among adolescents aged 12-15 (grades 6-9), the age group when experimentation with smoking begins. This Webbased curriculum aims to influence adolescent attitudes and behaviors about tobacco use through an interactive multimedia smoking prevention program. It was tested in two group-randomized pretest-posttest controlled trials in the United States (n=20 schools) and Australia (n=24 schools). The results of both trials demonstrated that Consider This was successful at changing attitudes and normative beliefs about not smoking in the desired direction. They also indicated that the program may be successful in reducing smoking a whole cigarette in the past 30 days (p<.05), especially in grades 8 and 9 (p<.04).
The specific aims of this dissemination project are to test two strategies for disseminating Consider This to middle, junior high, and senior high schools in Colorado - strategies that include having local opinion leaders promote the program and providing testimonials from other teachers about program use. This will be tested in a 2 (opinion leader/no opinion leader) x 2 (testimonials/no testimonials) randomized factorial design with posttest only. Utilization of Consider This (primary outcome) will be measured by the number and proportion of logins by individual teachers and students in the eligible middle, junior, and senior high schools for each study group. Key theoretical moderators and mediators of adoption of Consider This suggested by Diffusion Theory will be analyzed.
