A process evaluation of the multi-faceted youth smoking prevention and cessation service, The Filter
| Author(s)
Andrea Meek and Dr. Aimee Grant
| | Presenter(s) |
Dr Aimee Grant Research Fellow, Institute of Primary Care and Public Health, Cardiff Unversity | Abstract The Filter is a tobacco prevention and smoking cessation service targeted at 11-25 year olds in Wales, launched in 2013. It provides telephone and SMS advice, social media interaction (Twitter, Facebook and a website), workshops for young people and training programmes for professionals. ASH Wales commissioned Cardiff University to evaluate the programme; qualitative interviews were undertaken with young people and professionals who had interacted with the service, and online surveys with young people and professionals were conducted.
We analysed social media content from The Filter’s Twitter feed, and described interaction with the website through Google Analytics and usage data collected by The Filter. Overall, the Filter’s professional training appeared to be acceptable and feasible. Likewise, the face-to-face workshops were reported to be acceptable by young people; however the response rate to our young people survey was very low. Engagement with social media is reasonably high, with 1,600 Twitter followers, 1,100 Likes on Facebook and 33,000 unique visitors to its website.
This is a programme that is well-received by professionals working with young people, and appears to attract reasonable levels of online engagement. It has not been possible in this evaluation to examine the effect of this engagement on smoking behaviour.
| Presenter biography Aimee Grant is a Research Fellow at Cardiff University’s Institute of Primary Care and Public Health. Her research interests are qualitative methodologies, tobacco control and smoking cessation and early years public health. Her current research includes the MAMSS project; adapting the ASSIST youth smoking prevention programme to include a drug prevention element (ASSIST + Frank); evaluating The Filter, a youth smoking cessation service; and examining the use of social media by users of tobacco products.
| Source of funding: ASH Wales
| Declaration of interest: None
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