Development of Junior High Smoking Prevention Curricula

Cigarette smoking is widely regarded as the number one cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States. Research testing innovative smoking prevention strategies has demonstrated the effectiveness of teaching social resistance skills either alone or in combination with general personal and social skills. However, curricula used by most schools are based on either ineffective or unproven prevention approaches. This Phase I is intended to bridge the gap between research and practice by developing smoking prevention materials for junior high school students based on the state-of-the-art in smoking prevention. The approach being tested has previously been demonstrated to reduce adolescent smoking by up to 87%. Commercially viable smoking prevention materials need to be developed to increase the potential for large-scale dissemination and utilization. Formative evaluation will be used to guide the development of high quality smoking prevention materials. Revisions based on these findings will be incorporated into the final version of the materials. This will be followed by a formal outcome evaluation during a subsequent Phase II study. This process is designed to produce attractive, appealing, and effective smoking prevention materials which can be marketed to schools in the United States and Canada.