May 31, 2004 – Convincing teenagers to quit smoking? Impossible, we say to ourselves. Yet researchers at Stanford University in the United States have found a way to do this: involve young people in anti-smoking campaigns.1.
Looking at existing studies, the researchers found that traditional tobacco prevention and education programs did not seem to be working. And if we let young people become aware of themselves, they asked themselves, would the result be the same?
It is on the basis of this hypothesis that the researchers selected ten Californian schools. In five of the schools, students followed a traditional tobacco prevention and education program (control group). In the other five, the students analyzed the tobacco industry’s marketing methods, visited businesses and learned how to organize an anti-smoking campaign (experimental group). Pupils in the second group have, for example, decided to enforce the anti-smoking measures of their school. Still others have tried to convince nearby businesses not to sell cigarettes to minors.
Results? In the group that followed the traditional program, the smoking rate had increased by 1.5% at the end of the study.
In comparison, the smoking rate decreased by 3.8% in the experimental group. Best of all, six months after the study ended, the smoking rate had dropped another 1%.
“It is very rare that the dropout rate decreases after six months,” says Dr.r Marilyn Winkleby, who was in charge of the study. “In the other methods we looked at, teens were going back to their old ways long before that. According to her, this approach could also be used to change the eating habits of young people or even encourage them to do more physical activity.
Diep Truong – HealthPassport.net
1. Winkleby, MA et al. Effects of an advocacy intervention to reduce smoking among teenagers, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 2004, 158 (3), 269-75.