Can “Cool Kids” help prevent others...

Researchers in the UK have revealed that the practice of getting popular kids to discus the risks of smoking with their peers may reduce the numbers of children who start smoking by almost 25%
Respected medical journal The Lancet published the results of the recent study highlighted the method which involved students nominating other students to spread the anti smoking message who they thought where influential, respected or seen as leaders. This approach differs from traditional smoking cessation systems

Researchers said that the selection process was proven to be more effective over conventional methods and significantly lowered the numbers of children and young people likely to take up smoking.
Image via Wikipedia Rona Campbell, a health researcher at the University of Bristol who helped lead the study said “The important thing this shows is that young people can help each other from taking up the addictive habit of smoking,” “If the programme was taken up widely it could cut the recruitment of new smokers significantly.”

The world’s leading cause of preventable death is smoking, causing emphysema, heart disease, several types of cancer alongside COPD and several other illnesses affecting both direct smokers and passive smokers.

The Global Tobacco Surveillance system Estimate that 10 percent of young people between 13 and 15 years of age smoke worldwide, with European countries topping the chart at 19%
Image via Wikipedia The recent study compiled results from almost 11 thousand young people aged between 12 and 13 in almost 60 schools ranged across the west of England and Wales. 29 Schools were picked at random to pursuer standard anti smoking programs with 30 other schools testing the new methods.
Students who admitted to having already smoked where allowed to be nominated as leaders providing they would agree to attempt to stop smoking.

The leaders who had been nominated by their peers informally passed on the information that had gained during training during normal conversations and social interactions with the other students.
The end result of the tests where significant with young people in the peer selection groups being calculated at being 23% less likely to take up smoking after 12 months and 15% less likely to start smoking after 24 months in comparison to standard anti-smoking practices.

Roughly translated the new methods researched could lead to a potential reduction of over 40,000 14 to 15 year old children who start smoking every year.

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One Response to “Can “Cool Kids” help prevent others smoking?”

1. Finally! Be free from smoking » Can "Cool Kids" help prevent others smoking? Says:
   June 5th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

   [...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe world’s leading cause of preventable death is smoking, causing emphysema, heart disease, several types of cancer alongside COPD and several other illnesses affecting both direct smokers and passive smokers. … [...]

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