141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

288112
Youth substance prevention program using multi-genre education

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Eunhee Park, BSN, RN , School of Nursing, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Pamela Kulbok, DNSc, RN, FAAN , School of Nursing, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Background: This study describes community health education for youth substance use prevention and strategies to develop health education programs using multi-genre projects. Youth substance-use prevention is an important public health goal in Healthy People 2020. However, prevention programs have not shown sustained results and few youth health education programs address appropriate developmental characteristics and ecological contexts of early adolescents. Methods: This program modified a youth substance use prevention program, Health Rocks!, including multi-genre activities such as role-playing, reading, writing, group discussion, media critiques, and creating anti-smoking posters. The 10-week program was implemented at a local community center during a summer youth development program. Participants were recruited through the center using convenience sampling. The quantitative data were collected from the retrospective pre- and post-evaluation to assess the program's effectiveness in changing participants' knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward substance use. The qualitative analysis included the investigator's lesson plans, reflections from field notes, the staff's formative evaluation, and the participants' writing and posters. Results: Analysis using Wilcoxon and t-tests showed significant results and positive trends in changing the thirty-one participants' knowledge, attitudes, and intentions regarding substance use. Program satisfaction was positive among participants and staff. Qualitative analysis revealed anti-smoking poster making, role-playing, and writing letters to parents engaged participants. Conclusions: This project outlines the importance of developing effective health education delivery methods using multi-genre activities that engage youth and connect to local knowledge. This study also identified strategies to increase feasibility such as partnership with community centers and encouraging staff participation.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related education
Public health or related nursing

Learning Objectives:
Describe community health education methods for youth substance-use prevention and discuss strategies to develop health education programs addressing adolescents’ developmental and ecological contexts using multi-genre projects.

Keywords: Adolescent Health, Community Building

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been an author for community based adolescent substance use prevention studies, and have been developing my research skills and experiences for this topic.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.