Background: Dental neglect results in dental caries, gum disease, and contributes to chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancers. Poor oral health habits developed in childhood persist into adulthood and can contribute to chronic diseases. School settings are a practical platform for teaching oral health skills. Purpose:…

The Recipe 4 Success preventive intervention targeted multiple factors critical to the health and well-being of toddlers living in poverty. This randomized controlled trial, which was embedded within Early Head Start home visits for 12 weeks, included 242 racially and ethnically diverse families (51% girls; toddler mean age = 2.58 years; data…

This article describes the adaptation of a parent-focused evidence-based childhood obesity intervention program for implementation by county-based Extension educators in coordination with school district personnel in rural Pennsylvania. The Lifestyle Positive Parenting Program was designed and evaluated in Australia in clinical settings. Several…

Addressing the need for suicide prevention on campus, I CARE training, developed and facilitated by counseling center clinicians, trains students, staff, and faculty to provide support to students experiencing distress or mental health problems. We assessed its impact using a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative analyses demonstrated significant…

The purpose of this study was to determine Pennsylvania principals' perceptions and understanding of the physical and psychosocial impact of childhood obesity, whether they believe schools should be addressing the issue, who they feel should be leading efforts within schools, what actions they believe are taking place to address the issue within…

Previous research has clearly demonstrated that smokers associate cigarette descriptors such as "light", "ultra-light" and "low tar" with reduced health risks, despite evidence showing that cigarettes with these descriptor terms do not present lower health risk. In June 2010, regulations implemented by the US Food and…

Media literacy interventions offer promising avenues for the prevention of risky health behaviors among children and adolescents, but current literature remains largely equivocal about their efficacy. The primary objective of this study was to develop and test theoretically-grounded measures of audiences' degree of engagement with the content of…

Facilitator-led smoking media literacy (SML) programs have improved media literacy and reduced intention to smoke. However, these programs face limitations including high costs and barriers to standardization. We examined the efficacy of a Web-based media literacy program in improving smoking media literacy skills among adolescents. Sixty-six 9th…

Background: Tobacco use leads to more deaths each year than any other single factor. This research examined teenagers' perceptions of anti-tobacco messages to determine which campaigns and educational approaches were most effective in preventing tobacco use among youth. Methods: Students from five rural high schools in western Pennsylvania were…

Background: "NEEDs for Bones" (NFB), based on the Health Belief Model, is a 4-lesson osteoporosis-prevention curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds. This study examined the relationship between enjoyment of food tastings and interest in NFB. Methods:NFB was administered by teachers as part of standard practice and evaluated after the fourth…

Objective: Explore student-involvement goals in local wellness policies (LWPs) of local education agencies (LEAs) in Pennsylvania (PA) and investigate associations with LEA characteristics. Design: An observational study that helped examine student-involvement goals. Setting: Public PA LEAs. Participants: LWPs submitted by 539 PA public LEAs. Main…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify significant external and internal challenges that state organization leaders face in promoting science-based teen pregnancy prevention programs within their states. The state organization administrators were chosen because their organizations were funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control…

Context: Multiple national agencies and organizations recommend that women age 40 years and older have an annual screening mammogram. Women who are poor, less educated, lack a usual source of care, and reside in rural Appalachia are less likely to have had a recent mammogram. Purpose: To increase use of mammography among a rural Appalachian…

Describes the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative currently underway in the Tyrone Area School District. The goals of the SS/HS Initiative involve reducing risk and building competencies for students and their families through integration of law enforcement and mental health into school-based prevention efforts. Program evaluation is…

When a program with demonstrated effectiveness is expanded, knowing how it works and why it works the way it does is an indispensable first step in preserving its quality. This report draws on P/PV's experience with different programs to show how to define a model's essential elements to increase the chances of successful replication. It contains…