Peer-led program helps keep teens smoke-free

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Smoking rates among teenagers can be cut by training influential peers to spread anti-smoking messages in everyday conversations with their friends and peer group, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal.

"These results show clearly that young people can help each other avoid taking up the health damaging and addictive habit of smoking," Dr. Rona Campbell of University of Bristol, UK, told Reuters Health.

"If implemented widely, this approach could cut the recruitment of new smokers considerably. This is especially important because if people don't start smoking when they are teenagers it's unlikely that they ever will," Campbell said.

Numerous studies have shown that whether or not a young person takes up smoking is strongly associated with their friends smoking behavior. Peer pressure, or peer influence, can also be used to encourage healthy behaviors, as shown by Campbell and colleagues with a smoking prevention program called ASSIST - an acronym for A Stop Smoking In Schools Trial.

The study involved 10,730 students aged 12 to 13 years at 59 schools from across the west of England and Wales that were assigned to either continue their normal education about smoking (the control schools) or add the ASSIST program to their regular smoking education curriculum (the intervention schools).

With the ASSIST program, willing, influential students attended a two-day training event, where they learned about the risks of smoking and the benefits of not smoking, and developed communication skills through role-playing.

"A key aspect of the peer supporter role" was having them identify and promote anti-smoking messages that they thought their peers would be receptive to, Campbell explained.

Over a 10-week period following the training, the peer supporters were asked to have informal conversations with other students outside the classroom to encourage their peers not to smoke. Follow up data were collected immediately after the intervention and after one and two years.