The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign

How Anti-Substance Abuse Campaigns Influence Substance Abusers' Psychological Health in Chinese Communities: The Mediating Role of Perceived Stigma

The current study explored how anti-substance abuse campaigns influence substance abusers' psychological health through the perception of stigma. The study is based on a sample of substance abusers who received community-based treatments (n = 3457) and used structural equation modeling to estimate the role of perceived stigma in mediating between perceptions of overstatement of harm conveyed in anti-substance abuse campaigns and psychological outcomes. The results revealed that substance abusers' perception of overstatement of the harm caused by the substances and substance abusers enhanced their perceived stigma and impaired their psychological health in terms of anxiety, depression, and somatization, through both direct and indirect pathways. The results advocate for proper strategies in the design of anti-substance abuse campaigns. Possible initiatives to reduce substance abusers' perceived stigma are recommended.

Salient environmental and perceptual correlates of current and established smoking for 2 representative cohorts of Indiana adolescents

PURPOSE

A secondary analysis of 2000 and 2004 Indiana Youth Tobacco Survey (IYTS) data was conducted to investigate salient environmental and perceptual correlates of adolescents' current and established smoking while controlling for demographic variables such as gender, grade, and race/ethnicity and to compare the pattern of significant correlates between the years.

METHODS

The IYTS was an anonymous school-based survey regarding tobacco use; familiarity with pro- and anti-tobacco media messages; exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS); minors' access to tobacco products; and general knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about tobacco. In 2000, a representative sample of 1416 public high school students in grades 9-12 and 1516 public middle school students in grades 6-8 (71.44% and 72.53% response rates, respectively) were surveyed. In 2004, 3433 public high school students and 1990 public middle school students (63.04% and 65.44 % response rates, respectively) were surveyed.

RESULTS

Significant predictors of adolescents' current and established smoking habits included exposure to ETS either in homes or in cars, exposure to pro-tobacco messages, perceived benefit of smoking, and perceived peer acceptance of smoking. The influence of exposure to pro-tobacco messages greatly outweighed exposure to any anti-tobacco messages.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this study warrant that more efforts and resources be placed on preventing youth from being exposed to ETS, and to control pro-tobacco marketing and improve the tobacco counter-marketing messages. The perceived benefits of smoking found here indicate that smoking for relaxation and weight control may be major influencing factors on adolescent smoking.

National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and school-based drug prevention: Evidence for a synergistic effect in ALERT Plus

This analysis examined the possible synergistic effect of exposure to the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and a classroom-based drug prevention curriculum among 9th grade students participating in a randomized trial of ALERT Plus. A total of 45 South Dakota high schools and their middle-school feeder(s) were randomly assigned to an ALERT condition (basic prevention curriculum delivered in 7th and 8th grades), an ALERT Plus condition (basic curriculum with booster lessons added for 9th and 10th grades), or a control condition. Marijuana use in the past month was significantly less likely among ALERT Plus students reporting at least weekly exposure to anti-drug media messages. The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign may have led to reductions in marijuana use among youth who simultaneously received school-based drug prevention.

Evidence-based prevention: characteristics, impact, and future direction

Drug use has been gradually declining among early and mid-adolescents since 1997. The timing of the decline roughly matches the introduction and diffusion (spread) of evidence-based prevention to middle schools in the United States. Evidence-based prevention refers to prevention programs, strategies, and policies that have been rigorously tested under research conditions and found to be effective in changing adolescent drug use behavior and attitudes. Federal and state funding for prevention is increasingly tied to community and school commitments to use only evidence-based strategies. However, local interpretation of what constitutes evidence-based prevention is highly variable, and subject to lack of knowledge about characteristics of evidence-based prevention, local politics and preferences for the status quo, and attempts to change parameters of evidence-based programs to fit perceived local needs. The current article reviews and synthesizes the characteristics and impact of evidence-based prevention, including the use of theoretical, process, and structural models; content guided by risk and protective factors for drug use; and settings and components of prevention delivery. Issues of adoption, implementation, and diffusion of evidence-based prevention are discussed. Gaps in knowledge of how to move the U.S. from research to practice are presented in terms of future researchable questions. Finally, the changing nature of prevention research is discussed as "action research," involving the negotiated partnership of the researcher and the community, and feedback of research results to communities to use as a planning tool for prevention.