Smoking prevention in schools reduces the number of young people who will later become smokers, according to a new review published in The Cochrane Library. World-wide, smoking causes five million preventable deaths every year, a number predicted to rise to eight million by 2030. The researchers analyzed data from 134 studies, in 25 different countries, which involved a total of 428,293 young people aged 5-18. Of these, 49 studies reported smoking behavior in those who had never previously smoked. The researchers focused on this group because it offered the clearest indication of whether smoking interventions prevent smoking. Although there were no significant effects within the first year, in studies with longer follow up the number of smokers was significantly lower in the groups targeted by smoking interventions than in the control group. In 15 studies which reported on changes in smoking behavior in a mixed group of never smokers, previous experimenters and quitters, there was no overall long term effect, but within the first year the number smoking was slightly lower in the control group. The analysis revealed two key points: • School programs designed to discourage young people from smoking appear to be effective at least one year after their use. • Programs that included social skills training were more effective than those that just provided information or training on resisting peer pressure. “This review is important because there are no other comprehensive reviews of world literature on school-based smoking prevention programs,” Julie McLellan, one of the authors of the review based at the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, wrote in the journal. “The main strength of the review is that it includes a large number of trials and participants. However, over half were from the United States, so we need to see studies across all areas of the world, as well as further studies analyzing the effects of interventions by gender.”

Source: ‘Smoking’ reported in www.cadca.org 2nd May 2013