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CDC Guidelines for School Programs to Prevent Tobacco Use
| How TAP and TEG Meet CDC Guidelines |
1. Policy. Develop and enforce a school policy on tobacco use. The policy, developed in collaboration with students, parents, school staff, health professionals, and school boards, should:
- Prohibit students, staff, parents, and visitors from using tobacco on school premises, in school vehicles, and at school functions.
- Prohibit tobacco advertising (e.g., on signs, T-shirts, or caps or through sponsorship of school events) in school buildings, at school functions, and in school publications.
- Require that all students receive instruction on avoiding tobacco use.
- Provide access and referral to cessation programs for students and staff.
- Help students who violate smoking policies to quit smoking rather than just punishing them.
| Intervening With Teen Tobacco Users (TEG) is a positive alternative to suspending students who violate a school tobacco-free policy or state/city tobacco ordinances. The curriculum addresses all of the CDC policy recommendations and includes sample tobacco-free policy and program implementation strategies. Helping Teens Stop Using Tobacco (TAP) specifically meets the recommendation to help students who violate policies to quit smoking.
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2. Instruction. Provide instruction about the short- and long-term negative physiologic and social consequences of tobacco use, social influences on tobacco use, peer norms regarding tobacco use, and refusal skills. This instruction should:
- Decrease the social acceptability of tobacco use and show that most young people do not smoke.
- Help students understand why young people start to use tobacco and identify more positive activities to meet their goals.
- Develop students' skills in assertiveness, goal setting, problem solving, and resisting pressure from the media and peers to use tobacco.
Programs that only discuss tobacco's harmful effects or attempt to instill fear do not prevent tobacco use.
| Both programs extensively address the dangers of tobacco use, focusing on age-appropriate short- and long-term effects. Through models, posters, videos and hands-on exercises, students are confronted with the consequences of tobacco use. In turn, they are taught the techniques and skills to make healthier choices, quit tobacco use and remain tobacco-free. |
3. Curriculum. Provide tobacco-use prevention education in grades K–12.
- This instruction should be introduced in elementary school and intensified in middle/junior high school, when students are exposed to older students who typically use tobacco at higher rates
- Reinforcement throughout high school is essential to ensure that successes in preventing tobacco use do not dissipate over time.
| Both programs provide not only tobacco use prevention education for students in grades 6-12, but also intervention and cessation information. Through intervening on teenage tobacco use behavior and helping teenage tobacco users quit, tobacco prevention is reinforced and supported. |
| 4. Training. Provide program-specific training for teachers. The training should include reviewing the curriculum, modeling instructional activities, and providing opportunities to practice implementing the lessons. Well-trained peer leaders can be an important adjunct to teacher-led instruction.
| Community Intervention provides an intensive, two-day training seminar on how to utilize both programs. Through lecture, role-play, audiovisuals and hands-on activities, participants move step-by-step through the curriculum resulting in a clear understanding of the rationale for the lessons and the confidence to implement them. |
5. Family Involvement.
Involve parents or families in supporting school-based programs to prevent tobacco use. Schools should:
- Promote discussions at home about tobacco use by assigning homework and projects that involve families.
- Encourage parents to participate in community efforts to prevent tobacco use and addiction.
Both programs encourage the involvement of parents and families. Many juvenile courts and schools require parents of youth caught using or in possession of tobacco to attend educational sessions with their child. Cessation information is provided to parents who want to quit. |
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| 6. Tobacco Cessation Efforts. Support cessation efforts among students and school staff who use tobacco. Schools should provide access to cessation programs that help students and staff stop using tobacco rather than punishing them for violating tobacco-use policies.
| Helping Teens Stop Using Tobacco (TAP) specifically meets this recommendation. It is a tobacco cessation program that addresses both spit and smoking tobacco for students in grades 7-12. It teaches multiple cessation methods and motivates students the action stage of quitting. While Intervening With Teen Tobacco Users (TEG) does not teach cessation, its goal is to move participants from the stage of change from not wanting to quit to wanting to quit. |
| 7. Evaluation. Assess the tobacco-use prevention program at regular intervals. Schools can use CDC's Guidelines for School Health Programs to Prevent Tobacco Use and Addiction to assess whether they are providing effective policies, curricula, training, family involvement, and cessation programs.
| Both curriculums include a pre- and post-test to measure participant’s changes in knowledge, attitude and tobacco use behavior. Evaluations are ongoing; however, two professional journals have published results including The Journal of School Health, October 1999 and Prevention Researcher, April 2001. |
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