Implementation of tobacco prevention programming and smoking
Abstracts
Initial Award Abstract |
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Despite the increased public knowledge regarding adverse health effects of smoking, a large proportion of adolescents in California continue to experiment with smoking. To reduce the current trend in smoking rates, school-based tobacco prevention programs focused on adolescent youth have been created. School-based curricula that are evidence-based have been shown to be effective in the prevention of smoking behaviors in adolescents. However, it appears that these evidence-based programs still have not been widely adopted by our nation’s schools. Currently, the CDC recommends tobacco prevention programming for K-12 students. However, most evidenced based programs target middle schools. Thus, in terms of elementary school tobacco prevention education, relatively little information is available regarding program implementation (e.g., types of curricula, amount of teacher training, administration support for the program), and whether these programs are having an effective impact on early adolescent tobacco use-related outcomes. This information is particularly important in California because monies from the California Tobacco Control Program are allocated to elementary schools. The proposed study is designed to test a model used to explain the process of how these major factors interact to facilitate the effective implementation of tobacco use prevention programs and provide the best possible tobacco related outcomes on youth participants.
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Some research has shown that implementation of prevention programs are predicted by a combination of educator-, school climate- and curriculum-level factors. Still, it is unknown how many of these factors are currently a part of the implementation process in California schools and how important each of these factors are to the overall outcomes in smoking knowledge attitudes and behaviors in elementary youth. The proposed study is designed to test a model used to explain the process of how these major factors interact to facilitate the effective implementation of tobacco use prevention programs and provide the best possible tobacco related outcomes on youth participants.
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The proposed study has the following specific objectives: (a) to assess educator, school climate and curricula factors that are associated with implementation of tobacco prevention, representing the degree to which they exist in among 5th grade students in California elementary schools; (b) to characterize the relative importance and impact of educator, school climate and curricula factors on changes (from 1996-2000) in cigarette smoking behaviors, intentions, attitudes and knowledge among youth in California elementary schools; (c) to determine the extent to which implementation factors directly or indirectly (through use of evidence-based curricula) affect final observable tobacco use-related outcomes; (d) to test other potential moderating and mediating mechanisms among educator-, school climate- and curricula-related factors in influencing positive tobacco use behaviors, intentions, attitudes and knowledge;
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The knowledge gained from this research will serve to inform tobacco legislators and policymakers whom continually face shrinking budgets so that they may develop proper guidelines and policies to increase the effectiveness of tobacco prevention interventions. |
