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

Abstract #104840

William K. Pan, DrPH, MS, MPH, Department of International Health, The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N Wolfe Street, Rm W5508, Baltimore, MD 21224, 410-502-2141, wpan@jhsph.edu and Scott K. Proescholdbell, MPH, NC Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch, Chronic Disease and Injury Control Section, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health, 1932 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1932.

40 states and the District of Columbia administer the Youth Tobacco Survey (YTS) designed to “provide states with comprehensive data on both middle school and high school students regarding tobacco use, exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, smoking cessation, school curriculum, minors' ability to purchase or otherwise obtain tobacco products, knowledge and attitudes about tobacco, and familiarity with pro-tobacco and anti-tobacco media messages.” Millions of dollars have been spent to collect these data, with state health departments receiving summary frequencies that are useful for surveillance purposes, but provide little to aid the evaluation of health promotion programs or examine specific factors related to changes in tobacco use over time. We propose an integrated theoretical approach that uses sophisticated statistical methodology to provide improved estimates of adolescent tobacco use prevalence and susceptibility by grade and age, race / ethnicity, and gender. We will compare these “adjusted” prevalence estimates to CDC-reported “crude” (unadjusted) estimates. We will also compare prevalence estimates over time (1999, 2001, and 2003) and evaluate the effectiveness of specific school-level policies on adolescent tobacco use and susceptibility (e.g., 100% tobacco-free school, anti-tobacco education campaigns, etc.) by comparing outcomes of schools that implement these policies to those that have not. This study not only helps evaluate adolescent tobacco use trends in North Carolina, but it demonstrates the ease of integrating simple analyses into CDC reports to produce superior estimates of adolescent smoking prevalence, which ultimately make YTS data more informative and valuable to state health departments for public health policy purposes.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, members of the audience will be able to

• Recognize the ease, importance, and utility of improving Youth Tobacco Survey (YTS) data analysis;
• Describe statistical procedures that produce “adjusted” and weighted estimates of adolescent tobacco use and susceptibility derived from YTS data;
• Evaluate the success of school-level policies in reducing adolescent tobacco use and susceptibility over time in North Carolina.

Keywords: Tobacco, Statistics

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.