Susan G. Brink

Increasing Teacher Receptivity toward Use of Tobacco Prevention Education Programs

An empirical examination of teacher receptivity to and practice of tobacco prevention education provides the foundation for comprehensive staff development to increase diffusion of drug prevention education curricula. Randomly-selected first grade Texas teachers (n = 313) were asked to complete a questionnaire during the first and second years of the Smoke-Free Class of 2000 (SFC2000) project. Initially 64 percent of recipients used materials. However, two of every five first-year users did not maintain use one year later, and many who intended use never implemented. Principal components analysis of fourteen items pertaining to receptivity resulted in four scales with acceptable reliability scores: general receptivity to tobacco prevention education, personal support for teaching tobacco prevention education, personal involvement, and school involvement in tobacco prevention. Scales were predictive of initial and continued use and provide a teacher receptivity measure to guide staff development.

An Ecological Approach to the Prevention of Injuries Due to Drinking and Driving

Among the many alcohol-related public health concerns, motor vehicle crashes account for nearly one-third of all deaths attributable to alcohol. Adolescents and young adults, particularly males, are important target populations for intervention efforts. Taking an ecological perspective of individuals within their social and physical environments, a diagnostic framework is employed in reviewing the literature on factors associated with drinking and driving injuries and on interventions to prevent injuries due to drinking and driving. Intervention planning is conceptualized according to a multilevel intervention framework, which consists of four phases: (1) health goals selection, (2) intervention planning, (3) intervention, and (4) evaluation. Possible intervention objectives, targets of the intervention actions, intervention approaches, and evaluation criteria are identified and discussed for three societal levels and four practice settings.

Patterns of primary care utilization in a triethnic urban population of school children.

Patterns of primary health care utilization for a random sample of urban elementary school children in three ethnic groups are described. Visit type, reasons for visit, and frequency of visits remained stable from year to year. More than 50 per cent of the children were non-visitors each year; 72 per cent of those not visiting the first year also did not visit the second year. Anglo-Americans were more likely to be non-visitors. Enrollment in a children and youth project is examined as a system factor that enabled limited-income families to seek comprehensive medical services. Analysis of the lowest two social classes indicated that significantly fewer Anglos than Mexican-Americans and blacks were enrolled in the Children and Youth Project The proportion of Anglo nonvisitors in the enrolled group was higher than the proportion of enrolled nonvisitors in the Mexican-American and black population. Each year, significantly more children in the non-visitor category were in the non-enrolled group regardless of ethnicity.