The Linking Lives health education program: a randomized clinical trial of a parent-based tobacco use prevention program for african american and latino youths.
OBJECTIVE
We evaluated the effectiveness of a parent-based add-on component to a school-based intervention to prevent cigarette smoking among African American and Latino middle school youths.


METHODS
Mother-adolescent dyads (n=1386) were randomly assigned to 2 groups: (1) a school-based smoking-prevention intervention or (2) the same intervention with a parent-based add-on component called Raising Smoke-Free Kids. Mothers in the experimental condition received the parent add-on component. Mothers in the control condition received information on selecting a high school. All adolescents received a version of Project Towards No Tobacco Use (TNT). The primary outcome was a reduction in adolescent cigarette smoking. Follow-up data were obtained from 1096 mother-adolescent dyads at 15 months postintervention.


RESULTS
At follow-up, the odds of smoking cigarettes were reduced by 42% for adolescents in the parent add-on condition versus the TNT-only condition. Mothers in the parent add-on condition were more likely than were mothers in the TNT-only condition to set rules about risk-sensitive social activities and to be perceived as trustworthy by their child. Group differences also were found in the frequency and quality of mother-adolescent communication.


CONCLUSIONS
Including parent add-on components in school-based smoking prevention programs can reduce smoking behavior on the part of inner-city middle school youths.
Guilamo-Ramos
Vincent
V
Columbia University School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027, USA. rg650@columbia.edu
Jaccard
James
J
Dittus
Patricia
P
Gonzalez
Bernardo
B
Bouris
Alida
A
Banspach
Stephen
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009519:New York City; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012907:Smoking / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D016896:Treatment Outcome