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Project Sixteen

An Evidence-Based Practice

This practice has been Archived and is no longer maintained.

Description

Project SixTeen is a community intervention designed to prevent adolescent tobacco use. The comprehensive community intervention targets key social influences on adolescent tobacco use. Intervention components include three modules: media advocacy, youth anti-tobacco, and family communications. These components were designed to mobilize parental influences for the prevention of adolescent smoking. The media advocacy module provides a set of strategies for publicizing the tobacco problem in the community and to encourage adults to support efforts to prevent adolescent tobacco use. Activities include newspaper articles, presentations to local groups, and public service announcements. The youth anti-tobacco module presents a menu of activities for youth in the community including creative activities (sidewalk art, T-shirt design), trade-in events (tobacco promotion items traded for anti-tobacco items), academic events, and games. The family communications module consists of activities to get parents to communicate with their children including distribution of pamphlets and parent-child quizzes.

Project SixTeen was designed to supplement school-based tobacco-prevention programs with a community intervention in order to further impact adolescent smoking behavior.

Goal / Mission

The goal of Project SixTeen is to reduce the use of adolescent tobacco use by utilizing a comprehensive community intervention approach.

Results / Accomplishments

A randomized controlled trial was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Eight pairs of Oregon communities were assigned to either a school-based intervention program or a community intervention (Project SixTeen) in addition to the school-based program. Pairs of communities were matched on socioeconomic status and population. The smoking prevalence decreased more in Project SixTeen communities than school-based only communities. In particular, the smoking prevalence for boys in grade 9 decreased significantly in Project SixTeen communities from 13.8% to 9.8%, but did not change significantly in school-based only communities.

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
Oregon Research Institute
Primary Contact
Oregon Research Institute
1776 Millrace Drive
Eugene, Oregon
97403
(541) 484-2123
http://www.ori.org/
Topics
Health / Alcohol & Drug Use
Health / Adolescent Health
Organization(s)
Oregon Research Institute
Source
Child Trends
Date of publication
2000
Geographic Type
Rural
Location
Oregon
For more details
Target Audience
Teens, Families