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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Deborah C. Glik, ScD, Mehrnaz Davoudi, MPH, and Rachel Gonzales, MPH. School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles, Community Health Sciences, P.O. Box 951772, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772, 310 206 9548, dglik@ucla.edu
Innovative strategies are needed as methods of tobacco prevention among adolescents. The University of California, Los Angeles implemented Project E.M.P.A.C.T., a curriculum that focuses on integrating media literacy and tobacco education into a school district within Southern California. A quasi-experimental design was used to evaluate change in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors among 600 students. The curriculum contains eight lesson plans, which were integrated into five 10th grade classes. Lessons were divided into two phases. Phase I strategies consisted of raising students' level of awareness regarding local and national prevalence of tobacco use; educating students about the health and social consequences of tobacco use; teaching students how to analyze and decode media messages; and allowing students to produce their own anti-tobacco media messages. Phase II strategies included engaging students in surveying and ad-busting their school library's print materials that contain tobacco ads and peer educator training. Overall attitudinal scores were analyzed using ANOVAs and reveal a significant difference in attitudes from pre to post-test (F=4.56, p < .05). Significant differences were also found between pre- and post-test scores measuring knowledge of tobacco (F=119.06, p<. 001). Although there were no pre- and post-test differences for the number of days participants smoked cigarettes, there was small but significant differences for the number of cigarettes smoked (t=2.82, p=.005). Change in media literacy skills from pre to post-test is currently being evaluated and will be made available for the presentation. Preliminary results indicate media literacy as an effective method of tobacco prevention among adolescents.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Media Literacy, Education
Related Web page: www.bol.ucla.edu/~clang/hmrc
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.