© Child Trends 2003
STARS (Start Taking Alcohol Risks Seriously) for Families
OVERVIEW
The STARS (Start Taking Alcohol Risks Seriously) for Families Program is a school-based prevention program designed to prevent alcohol use among adolescents. The curriculum includes consultation with nurses and mailed postcards to the adolescent’s home. Parents discuss the prevention message on the postcard with their child. Six months after the program ended, intervention group adolescents who attended a magnet school reported significantly less alcohol use and intent to drink alcohol than similar adolescents in the control group. No impact was found for adolescents at the neighborhood school. At the one-year follow-up, the program impact on intent to drink alcohol remained significant at the magnet school, but there was no impact on alcohol use at either school.
The STARS for Families Program is a school-based program aimed to prevent alcohol use among adolescents. Intervention consists of health consultations with nurses. Following the consultation youth receive prevention postcards. The postcards contain key facts about specific alcohol-related risk factors that are discussed during the health consultation. In the spring semester, parents/guardians are mailed up to 10 postcards, which contain alcohol prevention information. Each postcard contains a new key fact about a risk factor for the student. The parent/guardian are asked to read and talk about the information with their child.
The STARS for Families curriculum can be purchased for $299, which includes the facilitator’s guide, fifty student postcard sets, and 50 student take-home lesson sets. Additional postcard sets and take-home lesson sets can also be purchased.
Evaluated population: Six-hundred-fifty sixth-grade students from one neighborhood and one bused middle school in an economically disadvantaged area in Jacksonville, Florida were randomly assigned to the STARS intervention or a control minimal intervention. The majority of students in the sample were African-American (58 percent), half of the students were male, and the average age was 12 years old. Seventy-eight percent of the students were in the free lunch program. Those students ineligible for the study were withdrawn from school or had an absentee rate greater than 50 percent. The final number of participants at the end of the study was 481 and 74 percent of the same completed the questionnaire.
Approach: Students were randomly assigned to the STARS intervention or a control group within the targeted schools. Students in the minimal intervention control group received a 15-page alcohol education booklet. In a quiet room, they were asked to read the booklet on their own. Data were collected using the Youth Alcohol Drug Survey at the beginning of the fall semester, end of spring semester, and six months after the end of spring semester. During the fall semester, intervention students received standardized health consultations with nurses. As many as 12 specific risk factors were addressed during the health consultation.
Youth also completed a confidential questionnaire administered by trained staff and received a “dipstick” saliva pipeline procedure to test alcohol and drug use.
Results: At six-month follow-up, alcohol use measures were not significantly different between intervention students and control students for the full sample. However, students from the bused school that received the intervention had significantly less intent to drink in the future and drank less alcohol than control group students from the bused school.
The program had a more significant impact for students who had prior alcohol-related problems. Bused students with prior alcohol problems had significantly less intention to drink after receiving the intervention, compared with control group bused students, but there was no significant difference in intent to drink in the future among students with no prior alcohol-related problems.
Werch, C. E., Owen, D. M., Carlson, J. M., DiClemente, C. C., Edgemon, P., & Moore, M. (2003). One-year follow-up results of the STARS for Families alcohol prevention program. Health and Education Research, 18(1), 74-87.
Evaluated Population: Participants included 650 sixth-grade students from two low-income middle schools in Jacksonville, Florida. Students were recruited by project staff in the fall of sixth-grade and followed until the end of eighth-grade. Of the students, 388 were recruited from a magnet school, and 272 were recruited from an inner-city neighborhood school. The majority of students were African-American (58 percent) with a mean age of 11.4 years. Fifty-four percent were male, and 55 percent received free lunch.
Approach: Students were randomly assigned within each school to the STARS for Families program intervention group or a minimal intervention control group. At baseline, intervention students received a brief one-on-one health consultation about why and how to avoid alcohol use. During the spring of sixth grade, intervention parents received prevention postcards explaining what to say to their children about alcohol avoidance. In the spring of seventh-grade, intervention students received a follow-up nurse consultation and four take-home lessons providing prevention activities. As many as 12 specific risk factors were addressed during the health consultation. Students in the minimal intervention control group were given alcohol education booklets during the fall of sixth-grade and seventh-grade and placed in a quiet area during health consultations to read the material on their own. Youth also completed a confidential questionnaire administered by trained staff and received a “dipstick” saliva pipeline procedure to test alcohol and drug use.
Significant differences were found between students at the two schools at baseline. Students in the neighborhood school sample were more likely to be female, African-American, older, receive free school lunch, live in a single parent/guardian home, and receive no prior alcohol or drug education during the past year than were students in the magnet school. These students were also less likely to have experienced lifetime alcohol use, greater levels of negative alcohol consequences, and great total risk for drinking. As a result, each school was treated as a separate sample during initial analyses. At the one-year follow-up 78 percent of participants completed a questionnaire.
Results: Significantly fewer intervention students from the magnet school were planning to drink in the next six months than control students. Magnet intervention students were marginally less likely to be in advanced stages of alcohol acquisition and to drink alcohol for any length of time than control students. Other measures of lifetime alcohol use, 30- and 7-day use, and 30-day heavy use were not significant for magnet intervention students. The neighborhood intervention students had significantly less total alcohol risk than control students.
Program curriculum can be purchased at: http://www.preventionresources.com/STARS-for-Families-Curriculum-p3270.html
Werch, C. E., Owen, D. M., Carlson, J. M., DiClemente, C. C., Edgemon, P., & Moore, M. (2003). One-year follow-up results of the STARS for Families alcohol prevention program. Health and Education Research, 18(1), 74-87.
Werch, C. E., Pappas, D. M., Carlson, J. M., & DiClemente, C. C. (1999). Six-month Outcomes of an Alcohol Prevention Program for Inner-city Youth. American Journal of Health Promotion, 13(4), 237-240.
KEYWORDS: Adolescence (12-17), School-based, Home-based, Adolescents (12-17), High-Risk, Alcohol Use, Middle School, White or Caucasian, Black or African American, Manual, Cost, Parent of Family Component
Program information last updated 1/4/12.
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© Child Trends 2003 |