Operation Smoke Storm: Effectiveness of a school-based smoking prevention intervention providing insight into the tobacco industry
| Author(s)
Amy Taylor, Sarah Lewis and Lisa Szatkowski
| | Presenter(s) |
Amy Taylor Research Assistant, Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Nottingham | Abstract Operation Smoke Storm informs children about tobacco industry practices through three teacher-led sessions, combining interactive paper-based and audio-visual components, and a booster session delivered one year later. To evaluate its effectiveness in reducing ever smoking and susceptibility, 446 students in two schools completed questionnaires in Year 7 and Year 8, before and after receiving this intervention. Multilevel logistic regression was used to compare odds of smoking at follow-up in students who received the intervention compared to 1,692 students in local schools who did not but who were asked identical smoking behaviour questions.
Prevalence of ever smoking or susceptibility to smoking was very similar in all schools at baseline. At follow-up, 7.9% of students in intervention schools reported ever smoking and 25.9% susceptibility; 10.7% of students in control schools reported ever smoking and 20.2% susceptibility. There was no significant difference in the odds of a combined outcome of ever smoking or susceptibility to smoking in intervention students compared to controls (adjusted OR 1.28, 95%CI 0.83-1.97), and no difference in odds of ever smoking (adjusted OR 0.82, 95%CI 0.42-1.58). Qualitative analysis is ongoing to explore students’ and teachers’ perceptions of Operation Smoke Storm and potential reasons for the apparent lack of effectiveness.
| Presenter biography Amy Taylor is a Research Assistant in the Division of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Nottingham, working on this mixed-methods evaluation of a multi-component intervention aiming to prevent the uptake of smoking in adolescents.
Amy has previously worked on various projects including the qualitative evaluation of an early years obesity prevention programme in Birmingham (Startwell), and a study exploring the need and opportunities to manage binge drinking among undergraduate students.
| Source of funding: National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research (NIHR PHR) Programme (project number 11/3010/02).
| Declaration of interest: We have no conflicts of interest to declare. Operation Smoke Storm was designed by Kick It, the Stop Smoking Service for Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster, Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames, who are independent of this academic evaluation.
| | |
|
