South Africa: Drive To Stub Out Smoking Among The Youth

Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Article Date: 26 Nov 2007 - 1:00 PDT

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A new study has found that two approaches to reduce teenage smoking rates and prevent others from starting appear twice as effective as the government's curriculum for teaching life skills.

Research by the Medical Research Council (MRC) is being studied by the education department with the view to improving tobacco prevention programmes in schools, as most smokers start when they are teenagers.

According to Professor Priscilla Reddy, director of the the MRC's health promotion research and development unit, "Smoking kills an estimated twenty thousand adults each year and is the single biggest cause of preventable deaths."

The MRC's study, funded by a five year grant from the US National Institutes of Health, compared the effect of South Africa's Revised National Curriculum Life Orientation syllabus with that of a US-developed peer resistance approach (called Life Skills Training), that emphasised abstinence and an Australian-developed model, based on harm minimisation.

The study found that reactions to the US and Australian programmes varied, depending on the race, gender and location of respondents. This prompted the MRC to recommend that both be made available to schools, with guidance on how to choose which one might be most appropriate.

The US Life Skills Training approach was found to be most effective among girls, while Australia's Keep Left programme worked best among boys.

http://www.ash.org.uk