Implementation and Assessment of an Empirically Validated Intervention Program to Prevent Tobacco Use Among African-American Middle-School Youth

Evaluated Project Towards No Tobacco Use (TNT), a tobacco-use prevention program delivered in schools with primarily African-American students. Students were assigned randomly by classroom to either the intervention (n=58) or to a no-treatment control group (n=40). Students in the intervention group received a curriculum-based program over the course of 10 sessions. Pre-and post-assessments of tobacco knowledge, attitudes, communication, peer refusal, and smoking tendency were gathered. Students in the intervention group differed from their peers in the control group by evidencing greater knowledge and communication skills. We found this tobacco-use prevention program useful for African-American students.This investigation was supported in full by the American Cancer Society Grant Award ACS IRG 97-151.     

Psychosocial mediation of fruit and vegetable consumption in the body and soul effectiveness trial.

In this study the authors examined psychosocial variables as mediators for fruit and vegetable (FV) intake in a clustered, randomized effectiveness trial conducted in African American churches. The study sample included 14 churches (8 intervention and 6 control) with 470 participants from the intervention churches and 285 participants from the control churches. The outcome of FV intake and the proposed mediators were measured at baseline and at 6-month follow-up. Structural equation modeling indicated that the intervention had direct effects on social support, self-efficacy, and autonomous motivation; these variables also had direct effects on FV intake. Applying the M. E. Sobel (1982) formula to test significant mediated effects, the authors confirmed that social support and self-efficacy were significant mediators but that autonomous motivation was not. Social support and self-efficacy partially mediated 20.9% of the total effect of the intervention on changes in FV intake. The results support the use of strategies to increase social support and self-efficacy in dietary intervention programs.     

Risk-Taking and Smoking Tendency Among Primarily African American School Children: Moderating Influences of Peer Susceptibility

We examined the hypothesis that peer susceptibility would moderate the association between risk-taking and tendency to smoke in adolescents who were primarily African American. Participants were 88 preadolescents recruited from a 6th grade classroom in a public elementary school. We found an interaction of risk-taking and susceptibility to peer influence on smoking tendency. Specifically, a moderator effect was found for peer influence on the association between risk-taking and smoking tendency. The importance of examining peer susceptibility on health promotion and other health behaviors in children and adolescents was supported.