Policy Research

Six year Follow up of the First Waterloo School Smoking Prevention Trial

B R Flay, D Koepke, S J Thomson, S Santi, J A Best, K S Brown

Summary

Students were randomly assigned to a control group, and a treatment group where they received several sessions of courses designed to educations students to resist social pressures to smoke. At a six-year follow-up, there were no significant differences in smoking rates between the treatment and control groups.

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Policy Implications

These results may have broad implications that school educational programs designed to resist peer-pressure may not be an effective method for reducing adverse behaviors. Policies that more directly tackle the problems are needed to reduce these risky behaviors.