Other 'What Works' Topics
Adolescent Health and Safety
By Juliet L. Hatcher, M.P.H., and Juliet Scarpa
TABLE 1 TABLE 2 TABLE 3 TABLE 4 TABLE 5 TABLE 6 TABLE 7
Tobacco Use Physical Activity and Nutrition Sleep Dental Health Unintentional Injuries: Motor Vehicles Unintentional Injuries: Bicycles Occupational Injuries
Adolescent Health and Safety

  Experimental Research Studies Non-Experimental Research Studies
Tobacco Use
- Multi-component, school-based programs (like Life Skills Training and Project Toward No Tobacco Use) that address peer pressure and other social influences to use tobacco, anxiety management, self-esteem building, communication skills, development of personal relationships, and/or misperceptions about norms and about the consequences of tobacco use. However, further research is needed to explain the apparent success of these programs given the failure of similar programs.

- Community program components that supplement school-based programs with media messages and other community activities.

- Fear-based strategies that simply provide factual information about the dangers of tobacco use.

- Local interventions to prevent tobacco sales to minors by increasing measured retailer compliance with the law.

- Pure "social influence" programs (like the Hutchinson Smoking Prevention Project) designed to counteract the social influences to use tobacco by enhancing resistance skills and correcting exaggerated perceptions of how common tobacco use is.

 
Individual Level
-Promote positive attitudes toward non-smoking and non-smokers.

-Treat and prevent adolescent depression and anxiety and childhood conduct problems.

Family Level
-Enhance parental monitoring and consistent discipline, as well as parental anti-smoking attitudes.

-Reduce parental smoking through prevention and cessation programs.

Peer Level
-Reduce tobacco use among peers via the other approaches detailed here.

Broader Environmental Levels
-Eliminate tobacco industry advertisements that target minors.

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