In the United States, teens tell their own story to discourage other students from smoking

Tobacco control campaigns in schools are crucial. Researchers at the University of Texas have innovated by proposing a prevention strategy presented, not by adults, but by middle and high school students.

Described in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the experiment consisted of gathering student volunteers to intervene in more than a hundred classrooms. Dubbed "Teen against tobacco use", the program was designed by the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association.

As part of the project, young middle and high school students have been trained to present

anti-smoking prevention to students enrolled in nine middle schools in downtown El Paso (Texas, USA). A total of 2,257 students participated in the study.

Several presentations, prepared by the students trained to intervene in the classrooms, were directly inspired by their own experience. For example, one of them described how the fact that his

mother had smoked during her pregnancy had helped slow her growth.

After telling their story, the student volunteers managed to get many college students to talk about the smoking history of their family. Some mentioned relatives with

chronic diseases or death cases related to smoking.

Smoking risks reduced by 37% thanks to student interventions

Sensitivity to

Tobacco was assessed through a short survey of students and control classes in 2014 and 2015 after the end of class presentations. Finalized in 2019, the analyzes compared the responses of students who listened to the presentations to those who did not.

The results show that students who received prevention messages were 12% less likely to smoke than those who did not attend the presentation (17%), which researchers say represents a 37% reduction in risks.

The young students who volunteered for the program also wrote a letter of intent to city council urging them to put in place an air quality ordinance.

"Their message was very compelling, partly because of their passion, but also because adults are supposed to protect the health of our young people. City Council passed the ordinance that students supported"says Louis Brown, assistant professor of health promotion and behavioral science at the UTHealth School of Public Health and lead author of the study.

However, longer experiments are needed to determine whether adolescents' smoking exposures can have a lasting impact on

prevention of smoking, say the researchers.

Created on September 26, 2019