MSPP: Minnesota Smoking Prevention Program

Principal Investigator
Cheryl L. Perry, PhD, University of Minnesota

Funding
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Objective
An intensive, school-based behavioral intervention on cigarette smoking, comparing long term outcomes in one of the intervention communities of the Minnesota Heart Health Program (MHHP – a population-wide research and demonstration project designed to reduce cardiovascular disease in three intervention communities from 1980-1993) with those in a matched reference community.

Methods
Beginning in 6th grade (1983), seven annual waves of cohort and cross-sectional behavioral measurements were taken from one MHHP community and its matched pair. All students in each community (baseline n = 2401) were eligible to participate. In the seventh grade, students participated in the Minnesota Smoking Prevention Program, which addressed the prevention of tobacco use by influencing the social and psychological factors that encourage the onset of smoking. Self-reported data collected at each period described prevalence and intensity of cigarette smoking.

Results
There were no differences at baseline for either weekly smoking prevalence or intensity of smoking. Throughout the follow-up period, however, smoking rates as determined by these measures were significantly lower in the intervention community: 14.6% of students were weekly smokers at the end of high school compared with 24.1% in the reference community.

Conclusion
These results suggest that multiple intervention components such as behavioral education in schools, booster programs to sustain training, and complementary community-wide strategies may all be needed for lasting reduction in adolescent tobacco use.

Materials
MSPP curriculum and student materials are available from Hazelden Publishing: http://www.hazeldenbookplace.org/.

The actual publication is available here: http://www.hazeldenbookplace.org/store/product.asp?sku=1144.

Publications
Perry CL, Kelder SH, Murray DM, Klepp K-I. Community-wide smoking prevention: Long-term outcomes of the Minnesota Heart Health Program and the Class of 1989 Study. American Journal of Public Health. 1992;82(9):1210-1216.