Aim. To assess the association of smoking prevention program with children knowledge and attitudes towards smoking as well as with their smoking behavior. Methods. Survey targeted at the 11-15 years old pupils and was carried out in four schools in Latvia and four schools in Liverpool before and after peer-to-peer pilot intervention. 931 questionnaires in Riga and 836 in Liverpool were used for data analysis. SPSS 15.0 for Windows has been utilized for processing the statistical data. The statistical significance of the data in question was tested, by using the chi-square (χ2) and Z criteria. Results. 15% of pupils in Riga (12% girls and 19% boys) and 8% in Liverpool (13% and 5%) smoked during last month, from which 3% and 1% - smoked daily. 92% of respondents in Liverpool and 94% in Riga knew that smoking is harmful for health. Before intervention 85% of pupils in Riga and 90% in Liverpool declared not smoking if one of the best friends offered a cigarette, ever smokers were less likely to resist. 35% in Liverpool and 49% Riga thought that girls and accordingly, 29% and 40% boys who smoke have less friends. Majority of population in both cities thought that smoking makes young people look less attractive. Approximately, half of the smokers were willing to quit with higher percentage of those who smoked daily. 50% of children in Riga and 44% in Liverpool schools were exposed to ETS at least one day, last week (daily, 22% and 19%), which was strongly associated with... [to full text] / Paukštė E. Vaikų ir jaunimo rūkymo prevencijos organizavimas bendruomenėje. Visuomenės sveikatos vadybos magistro baigiamasis darbas / darbo vadovas doc. Veryga A.; Lietuvos sveikatos mokslų universitetas, Medicinos akademija, Visuomenės sveikatos fakultetas, Sveikatos vadybos katedra. – Kaunas, 2011. – 98 p. Darbo tikslas. Įvertinti vaikų rūkymo prevencijos programos reikšmę vaikų žinioms, nuostatoms apie rūkymą bei jų rūkymo įpročiams. Metodai. Anoniminė 11-15 metų moksleivių apklausa atlikta keturiose Latvijos ir keturiose Liverpulio mokyklose prieš ir po bendraamžis-bendraamžiui bandomają intervenciją. Į duomenų analizę buvo įtraukta 931 anketa Rygoje ir 836 anketos Liverpulyje. Statistinė duomenų analizė buvo atlikta naudojant statistinį programinį paketą SPSS 15.0 for Windows. Surinktų duomenų skirtumų patikimumas buvo vertinamas Chi kvadrato (χ2) ir Z kriterijais. Rezultatai. Nustatyta, jog per pastarąsias 30 dienų, Rygoje rūkė 15 proc. (12 proc. mergaičių ir 19 proc. berniukų) ir Liverpulyje 8 proc. moksleivių (13 proc. ir 5 proc.) iš kurių 3 proc. ir 1 proc. rūkė kasdien. 92 proc. moksleivių Liverpulyje ir 94 proc. Rygoje žinojo, jog rūkymas yra žąlingas sveikatai. 85 proc. vaikų Rygoje ir 90 proc. Liverpulyje prieš intervenciją teigė, jog nerūkytų jeigu vienas geriausių draugų pasiūlytų cigaretę. 35 proc. apklaustųjų Liverpulyje ir 49 proc. Rygoje manė, jog mergaitės ir atitinkamai, 29 proc. ir 40 proc. berniukai, kurie rūko turi mažiau draugų. Beto, didžioji... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

The social norms concept provides a fresh basis for thinking about how public health policies and campaigns impact health behaviour. Social norms offer much promise to the field of public health, nonetheless, the potential role of norms in changing health behaviour have not been fully embraced. This thesis demonstrates that one of the mechanisms by which national level policies (e.g. tobacco control) can promote health behaviour change, such as an increase in quit intentions, is by making smoking less normative and an undesirable behaviour. This study is vital as it provides a broad conceptualization of tobacco denormalisation and shows how its reasoning is able to influence normative beliefs and smoking behaviour. A review of literature was carried out to establish the generic origins of denormalisation as well as demonstrate that this approach (i.e. social norms) has been widely adopted in schools and college settings to influence health behaviour. As a broader perspective of this thinking was imperative to address public health issues at a societal level, tobacco control was employed to investigate how individual polices influence behaviour and normative beliefs. The research methodology used was pluralistic in nature, given that the majority of past tobacco control policy studies employed either quantitative or qualitative methods. Thus adopting both methods a richer amount of data would be obtained in order to generate an improved understanding of how public policy affects norms and smoking behaviour. To empirically examine the relationship between public policy, social norms and smoking behaviour a broad conceptualization was developed to investigate the normative pathways between national level tobacco policy effects on youth and adults’ smoking behaviour. Quantitative results from the longitudinal study, the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Scotland/UK survey, indicate that a comprehensive smoke-free law that covers, without exception, an entire nation (i.e. Scotland) has increased adult smokers’ perceived social unacceptability of smoking, to some extent higher in Scotland than rest of the UK which, in turn, is associated with quit intentions at follow-up, in both countries. The examination of data from the UK Youth Tobacco Policy Study (YTPS) also demonstrated that the influence of tobacco marketing awareness on adolescents’ smoking intentions is mediated by perceived norms. Prior to the enactment of the UK Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act (TAPA), higher levels of awareness of tobacco advertising and promotion were independently associated with higher levels of perceived sibling approval which, in turn, were positively related to smoking intentions. Independent paths from perceived smoking prevalence and benefits fully mediated the effects of advertising and promotion awareness on intentions, during and after the enactment of the TAPA. Results from the qualitative study generally supported the quantitative findings and provided new insights into how adolescents’ normative beliefs and smoking behaviour are influenced by tobacco control policies. The qualitative group discussion suggests that smoke-free legislation and anti-smoking ads influence perceptions of prevalence, acceptability and smoking behaviour. A number of theoretical implications were presented, including the belief that social norms campaigns and interventions must be focal and salient in individuals’ consciousness so as to effect the desired behaviour change. A theoretical framework of the various normative mechanisms should consequently be integrated into tobacco control policies and norm-based interventions to work in a synergistic manner to influence health-related behaviour. Practical implications of this conceptualization include the view that, instead of public health interventions focusing on conventional approaches (for example, scare tactics), an appropriate strategy would be to incorporate specific information that corrects normative misperceptions and ambiguities among referent populations at individual and societal levels, with consequential normative and health behaviour change. It is recommended that future research employing tobacco industry perceptions and possibly a descriptive norm as additional normative mediators, aside from unacceptability, would be of value to examine whether smoke-free legislation influences quitting partly via changing favourable tobacco industry perceptions, social acceptability of smoking and perceived prevalence of smoking. To sum up, the findings demonstrate that societal level policy measures such as smoke-free legislation and the TAPA are critical elements of a comprehensive tobacco control program that can significantly influence adult smokers’ quit intentions and reduce adolescents’ smoking intentions respectively, by signifying smoking to be less normative and to be socially unacceptable.