Meri Paavola

Fifteen-year follow-up of smoking prevention effects in the North Karelia youth project.

OBJECTIVES This study evaluated the long-term effects of a school- and community-based smoking prevention program in Finland. METHODS Four intervention schools from North Karelia and two control schools from another province were chosen for the evaluation. Students who received the intervention were taught to resist social pressures to smoke. The program began in 1978 with seventh-grade students and ran through 1980, with a 15-year follow-up. In North Karelia, a community-based smoking cessation program for adults was also carried out. RESULTS Mean lifetime cigarette consumption was 22% lower among program subjects than among control subjects. Smoking and prevalence were lower up to the age of 21. CONCLUSIONS Long-term smoking prevention effects can be achieved if a school-based program using a social influence model is combined with community and mass media interventions.

European smoke-free class competition

Editor,—In the school year 1997/1998, a school-based European smoking prevention project, the Smokefree Class Competition, started for the first time. Target groups for the competition were pupils aged 12–14 years. Research has shown that there is a strong positive correlation between the age of starting to experiment with cigarette smoking and the probability of becoming a regular smoker. In a study by Meier,1 60% of regular smokers started smoking by the age of 13. However the probability of becoming a smoker after adolescence is quite low.2Therefore the principal aims of the smokefree class competition are to delay or prevent the onset of smoking and the reduction or cessation of cigarette smoking in pupils who have already experimented with smoking. In the 1997/1998 school year Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom took part in the competition. In …