This report presents the findings and methodology of an intensive, school-based behavioral intervention to prevent student cigarette-smoking, comparing long-term outcomes in one of the intervention communities with those in a matched reference community.
This Class of 1989 Study is part of the Minnesota Heart Health Program (MHHP), a population-wide research and demonstration project intended to reduce cardiovascular disease in three educated communities from 1980 to 1993. The Class of 1989 Study evaluated the youth education portion in two MHHP communities. Beginning in sixth grade (1983), seven annual waves of cohort and cross-sectional behavioral measurements were conducted in one MHHP intervention community and its matched pair. All students in each community were eligible to participate (2,401 at baseline). Self-reported data collected for each period were used to determine the prevalence and frequency of cigarette smoking. At baseline, there were no differences for either weekly smoking prevalence or frequency of smoking; however, smoking rates were significantly lower in the intervention community. At the end of high school, 14.6 percent of students in the prevention program were weekly smokers compared with 24.1 percent in the control community. The discussion advises that the effects of other smoking-prevention measures have, for the most part, diminished over time; few investigators have reported effects past the 10th grade. This suggests that behavioral education in schools, booster programs to sustain training, and complementary communitywide change may be needed to maintain smoking prevention effects with youth. Study limitations are noted. 4 figures, 2 tables, and 27 references