Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Jul 1996
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical TrialTobacco use measurement, prediction, and intervention in elementary schools in four states: the CATCH Study.
The Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH) is a multistate field trial examining the effects of school environment, classroom curricula, and family intervention components in promoting the cardiovascular health of elementary school students. The purpose of this paper is to describe the CATCH tobacco use intervention and measurement, including the adoption of tobacco-free school policies. ⋯ Future studies should examine the impact of parallel policy interventions that are ongoing at both school and state levels. Tobacco-free policies appear to be a crucial part of school-based interventions and must be tailored to political and regional factors affecting a given school district.
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Preventive medicine · May 1996
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical TrialThe effectiveness of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (project DARE): 5-year follow-up results.
This article reports the results of a 5-year, longitudinal evaluation of the effectiveness of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), a school-based primary drug prevention curriculum designed for introduction during the last year of elementary education. DARE is the most widely disseminated school-based prevention curriculum in the United States. ⋯ The findings of this 5-year prospective study are largely consonant with the results obtained from prior short-term evaluations of the DARE curriculum, which have reported limited effects of the program upon drug use, greater efficacy with respect to attitudes, social skills, and knowledge, but a general tendency for curriculum effects to decay over time. The results of this study underscore the need for more robust prevention programming targeted specifically at risk factors, the inclusion of booster sessions to sustain positive effects, and greater attention to interrelationships between developmental processes in adolescent substance use, individual level characteristics, and social context.
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Preventive medicine · May 1996
Short-term all-cause mortality and its determinants in elderly male populations in Finland, The Netherlands, and Italy: the FINE Study. Finland, Italy, Netherlands Elderly Study.
This study aims at identifying determinants of all-cause mortality in elderly populations of different countries. ⋯ In these elderly men the association of traditional risk factors with all-cause mortality is reduced, U-shaped, or even inverted. This is probably due to selection due to previous mortality, to comorbidity, and to changes in homeostatic mechanisms.
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Preventive medicine · Mar 1996
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialReducing cancer risk among Native American adolescents.
This article discusses the development, implementation, and preliminary testing of an intervention to reduce cancer risks through tobacco use prevention and dietary modification among Native American youth in the Northeastern United States. ⋯ Data from this longitudinal study suggest the value of the FACETS curriculum for helping Native American youth reduce their risks for cancer associated with tobacco use and dietary preference and consumption patterns. In particular, results indicate the enhanced effects of the combined tobacco use prevention and dietary modification intervention for preventing tobacco use and for improving youths' knowledge and attitudes with regard to tobacco use and diet. Further, the study demonstrates the value of collaborating with Native American organizations to design a cancer risk-reducing curriculum and to implement tests of that curriculum.