Friday, 14 January 2005 - 10:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Intervening with At-Risk Adolescents

Effective Media Campaign to Reduce Youth Tobacco Use

Introduction: Tobacco use is the leading cause of mortality within the United States. Although rates of youth tobacco youth have declined over the past decade, nearly 28% of high school seniors use tobacco. Few public health media campaigns have been effective in reducing tobacco use. Method: A quasi-experimental design was used to determine the effectiveness of Homework Helpline (HH), a partnership among a local newspaper, public and private schools, and a tobacco control organization. The aim of HH was to inform youth and parents about the importance of discussing tobacco within the family. Homework Helpline was implemented in 9 school districts and 3 other school districts from the same county served as a comparison condition. The experimental schools agreed to record each classrooms' homework on a direct dial telephone answering machine. Parents and youth were able to call the HH to obtain students’ homework for that day. Additionally all callers received a 15 second message about the importance of parents to discuss tobacco with their children. Prior to the onset of HH in September of 2004, a convenience sample of 120 youth in grades 5 through 8 were recruited from local public swimming pools to participate in a survey about their behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge of tobacco use. Overall 72 youth were students in experimental schools and 48 students were in comparison schools. All youth agreed to participate in a follow-up survey at 4 and 8 months. Results: The 4-month follow-up survey included 102 (81%) youth. Of the 62 youth in the experimental condition, 55 (89%) reported that they or their parents had used the HH program in the past four months whereas none of the 40 comparison youth used the program. Baseline data between conditions found that there were no statistical differences in the proportion of youth who talked with their parents about tobacco use (Chi-square = 1.02, df=1, p=.51). However, at the 4 month follow-up a statistically significant effect was detected in that a greater proportion of youth in the experimental condition (81%) had talked to a parent about tobacco compared to 35% of youth in the comparison condition (chi-square=9.32, df=1, p<.01). Further analyses showed no statistical difference in youth tobacco use as a function of condition, although there was not sufficient power to detect a possible meaningful change between groups. Overall 9% of youth in the experimental condition used tobacco in the 30 days prior to the survey compared to 11% of youth in the comparison group. Further systematic data found that during the first 4 months of the HH program a total of 224,331 calls were made by students and parents in the experimental condition. Conclusions: We conclude that repeated positive messages about the importance of discussing tobacco use with youth can be an effective strategy to help parents talk with their child about tobacco, and these discussions can possibly reduce youth tobacco use. Developing community partnerships with media and school systems can effectively build opportunities for change within a community.

See more of Intervening with At-Risk Adolescents
See more of Oral and Poster

See more of Celebrating a Decade of SSWR (January 13 - 16, 2005)