Development of UP2UTobacco for High School Youth

Tobacco use is increasing among youth in the U.S. However evidence for the long-term effectiveness of tobacco cessation programs for youth is limited. The current study seeks to adapt and evaluate a universal group-based youth brief tobacco intervention for 9th grade students. This study will use a sequential, multi-method research design beginning with qualitative roundtable discussions with 9th grade students to adapt an existing young adult brief tobacco intervention for youth. Roundtable discussions with students will identify salient intervention themes and strategies for targeting the intervention and developing the text messages. The second phase of the study evaluates the brief intervention, UP2UTobacco, through a cluster randomized controlled trial that compares UP2UTobacco to a no treatment control. It is hypothesized that the UP2UTobacco will produce greater abstinence at the 6-month follow-up compared to the no treatment control. Roughly 90% of daily smokers started before the age of 18, and 2,000 youth smoke a cigarette for the first time each day in the U.S. Additionally, e-cigarette use is on the rise among youth, and is linked to cigarette initiation among tobacco naïve youth. In order to curb the rise of tobacco use among youth, interventions that are easily implemented and easily disseminated need to be developed for youth addressing currently available products and contemporary patterns of use. If the interventions in the current study are proven efficacious, they can easily be disseminated to other schools to continue reducing youth tobacco use.