Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #103859

Thomas W. Valente, PhD¹, Anamara Ritt-Olson, PhD², Chih-Ping Chou, PhD³, Jennifer Unger, PhD³, Alan Stacey, PhD⁴, and Steven Sussman, PhD⁵. (1) Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California, 1000 S. Fremont Ave., Bldg A Room 5133, Alhambra, CA 91803, (626) 457-6678, tvalente@usc.edu, (2) USC/Children's Hospital LA, University of Southern California, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90027, (3) Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, University of Southern California, 1000 S. Fremont Avenue, Unit 8, Alhambra, CA 91803, (4) Department of preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1000 S. Fremont Avenue, Unit 8, Alhambra, CA 91803, (5) School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1000 S. Fremont Ave, Unit #8, Alhambra, CA 91803

This study tests the effectiveness of using social network methods to identify peer opinion leaders and construct groups for a modified version of TND. We recruited 16 schools with 75 classes in southern California and randomly assigned them to receive control (survey only), TND, and TND-Networked. Pre- and post-curriculum data were collected from 6545 students enrolled in California continuation (alternative) high schools. Data include monthly and lifetime use of tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. The curricula consisted of 12 sessions delivered over a 3 to 4 week period from February to December 2004. Relative to the control group, we expect students in the network condition to have liked the prevention program more and report lower monthly use of substances. We expect TND – network to have better outcomes than TND regular. The study has shown that it is feasible to adapt an evidence based substance use prevention program using social network theory and data. We expect that using social network data will results in more effective programs, particularly those delivered to adolescents.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how social network data can be used to modify existing health promotion programs.
• Calculate the effectiveness of existing evidence based substance use prevention programs.
• Use social network data to adapt and improve existing health promotion programs.

Keywords: Substance Abuse Prevention, School Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.