Pro-innovation bias: the case of the Giant Texas SmokeScream

Implementing evidence-based substance use prevention curricula in North Carolina public school districts

The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA) provides funding for prevention education to nearly every school district in the nation. Recent federal policy requires SDFSCA recipients to implement evidence-based prevention programs. This paper reports the extent to which North Carolina public school districts implement evidence-based substance use prevention curricula. Results showed that while the majority of school districts use evidence-based prevention curricula, they are rarely the most commonly used curricula. Evidence-based curricula are much more likely to be used at the middle school level than at the elementary or high school levels. Urbanicity, coordinator time, and coordinator experience correlated with extensive use of evidence-based curricula in the bivariate analysis, but only time spent on prevention by the Safe and Drug-Free Schools (SDFS) coordinator significantly predicted extensive use in the multivariate analysis. Increasing district SDFSCA coordinator time is a necessary step for diffusing evidence-based curricula.

Context Dissonance in Tobacco Education Literature

Tobacco education has gained widespread popular and political support and Is incorporated into many public schools' curricula. However, evaluation studies indicate that such programs do not decrease adolescents' smoking rates because program content is often dissonant with adolescents' interpretations of smoking. This study uses social constructionism and content analysis to explore tobacco education literature used in an alternative high school for at-risk youths. Findings indicate that the content's construction of smoking and cessation is dissonant with adolescents' subcultural social contexts. Dissonance-generating elements include decontextualization of smoking; suggested alternatives that are Improbable in adolescents' social contexts; and image biases that reflect stereotypes of age, class, and gender. The conclusion suggests ways to eliminate context dissonance in order to increase adolescents' receptivity to intervention efforts.

High school health teachers' perceived self-efficacy in identifying students at risk for suicide

A national random sample of 228 high school health teachers completed a 45-item survey to examine their perceived self-efficacy regarding adolescent suicide. Most respondents were female, White, and held master's degrees. Most believed it was their role to recognize students at risk for suicide, believed that if they did recognize students at risk it would reduce the chances that the student would commit suicide, and believed that one of the most important things they could do would be to prevent a suicidal student from committing suicide. However, only 9% believed they could recognize a student at risk for suicide. High efficacy expectations scores were associated with working at a school that offered an inservice program on adolescent suicide, included teaching about suicide prevention in the curriculum, and had a crisis intervention team. This study suggests that teacher health education programs should spend more time on developing the skills necessary to identify students at risk. In addition, a comprehensive school suicide prevention program is strongly encouraged for all high schools.

Evaluation of Jump Into Action: a program to reduce the risk of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus in school children on the Texas-Mexico border

Jump Into Action, a school-based non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) prevention program, encourages students to eat low-fat foods and exercise regularly to reduce their risks for developing NIDDM. A study was conducted in a school district with a predominately Hispanic enrollment to assess the effectiveness of Jump Into Action in improving fifth-graders' knowledge, self-efficacy, and behaviors regarding NIDDM prevention. Jump Into Action was found effective in increasing knowledge and self-efficacy regarding NIDDM prevention and improving dietary and exercise-related behaviors. These gains were sustained from posttest to follow-up four weeks later.

Recruitment issues in school-based research: lessons learned from the High 5 Alabama Project

School-based research requires a multi-level recruitment process to ensure an adequate sample. This article describes the High 5 Alabama recruitment experience at four levels; district, school, classroom and individual. One hundred percent of 28 schools across three districts and 108 classroom teachers contacted agreed to participate. Moderate success (69%) at the individual level, which required active parental consent for the student and parent to participate, resulted in 1,698 student/parent participants. An examination of differences between participants and nonparticipants revealed under-representation of a subsample of the population in the project sample. Suggestions obtained from project staff and teachers intended to enhance future school-based recruitment strategies include enlistment of a district advocate; meeting with teachers to solicit support; using incentives with students and teachers; direct contact with parents; having teachers keep rosters of students returning consent forms; and tailoring recruitment strategies for specific subpopulations.

National assessment of early elementary teachers perceived self-efficacy for teaching tobacco prevention based on the CDC guidelines

A national random sample of 505 early elementary school teachers completed a 47-item survey to determine their perceived self-efficacy for teaching tobacco prevention education based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for grades K-3, their training status on tobacco prevention, and their level of teaching about tobacco prevention. Results indicated most of the teachers were female, White, held a bachelor's or master's degree, never smoked, and had not received formal tobacco prevention training. The teachers' scores were high for efficacy expectations, and for outcome expectations. Conversely, for outcome value, teachers ranked tobacco prevention fifth out of six health topics, as the most important health topic to teach elementary students. Also, teachers trained in four tobacco areas or more had statistically significantly higher scores for efficacy expectations than those trained in three or fewer areas. Statistically significant positive associations were also found between years of teaching tobacco prevention and efficacy and outcome expectation scores, and between the amount of time that tobacco prevention was taught during the past school year and outcome value.