The prevention of cigarette smoking in children: two- and three-year follow-up comparisons of four prevention strategies.
Recent studies have suggested that a prevention program that addresses the social influences that encourage smoking can be effective in deterring cigarette use by adolescents. This study presents 1-, 2-, and 3-year follow-up results from two studies which evaluated three variations of the social influences curriculum and compared them to a health consequences program and a usual-care comparison group. These results suggest that a peer-led, social influences program can restrain smoking among both baseline nonsmokers and baseline experimental smokers at 2 years postintervention. Analyses of attrition data suggest no evidence to threaten the internal validity of these findings, although their generalizability to baseline smokers may be limited.
Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455.
D M
DM
Murray
P S
PS
Richards
R V
RV
Luepker
C A
CA
Johnson
D000293:Adolescent; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology; D000074606:Smoking Prevention