This training guide is intended to increase the understanding and skills of Head Start managers and directors to: (1) identify the ways in which employee health affects the organization's effectiveness; (2) design training programs that encourage employees to improve their own health; (3) understand how the organization contributes to the overall…

This special issue focuses on problems and challenges confronting the California family and on research and extension efforts to provide at least partial answers. Research briefs by staff include "Challenges Confront the California Family" (state trends in poverty, divorce, single-parent families, child abuse, delinquency, teen births,…

In 1993, "Signs of Effectiveness in Preventing Alcohol and Other Drug Problems" appeared. It addressed alcohol and other drug use as a health problem influenced by risk factors in five life spheres or domains: individual, family, school, peer group, and community. Like its predecessor, "Signs of Effectiveness II" reports on…

A telephone survey of a random sample of over 1,650 Pennsylvania citizens solicited opinions on proposals for improvements in the areas of: (1) welfare reform; (2) smoking reduction; (3) unintended pregnancies and unwanted births; (4) education reform; (5) children's health and safety; and (6) workmen's compensation. Each section of this report…

Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use among public school students continues to be a major concern in Oregon as it is across the nation. This report, the sixth of the biannual public school drug use surveys conducted in Oregon since 1986, discusses major findings. These findings are (1) marijuana use is up for both the eighth and eleventh grades;…

The purpose of this study was to investigate among postmenopausal women the relationship of dietary fat intake, tobacco smoking, alcohol use, physical activity, and body weight to total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol measures in order to assess the relative influence of each…

This book combines in a single volume the findings of basic research and clinical studies conducted on the effects of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs on the fetus, the mother, and the baby after birth and through lactation. It first outlines changing perspectives on teratology (the study of causes for birth defects), as knowledge about the…

A drug abuse prevention curriculum for middle school students in grades five through eight is presented in this document, one of a series that is designed to provide educators with the curricular tools necessary to challenge students to take personal responsibility for their health. Each of the 11 lessons includes information of the lesson…

This study examined a smoking intervention program, which employed group competitions with rewards, to determine its effects on adolescents' smoking-relevant beliefs, their subjective norms, and peer influence. Initially, 1,187 seventh graders in Burlington, Clinton, and Muscatine, Iowa were surveyed in 1984. Data were gathered from a re-survey…

From the mid-1960s until 1980, adolescent drug use rose sharply. Although use has declined somewhat since, adolescent cocaine use remains at peak levels, and crack presents a major threat. Treatment for compulsive drug or alcohol use is needed by 5 to 15 percent of the teenagers who experiment with drugs and alcohol. Drug abuse experts now believe…

Marijuana and alcohol use by high school students has continued to increase through the latter part of the 1970's. To gain information on the extent of this problem in their area, a school district in rural western Pennsylvania approved a study of drug and alcohol usage by the school district's 2,200 students. For reasons of confidentiality, all…

To inform students of health risks (posed by behavior, environment, and genetics) and provide schools with collective risk appraisal information as a basis for planning/evaluating health and wellness initiatives, New Mexico administered the Teen Wellness Check in 1985 to 1,573 ninth-grade students from 7 New Mexico public schools. Subjects were…

This report presents findings from the national research and reporting program, Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyle and Values of Youth, and is the sixth in an annual series reporting the drug use and related attitudes of high school seniors; the report covers the high school classes of 1975-1982. Two of the major topics…

This study describes research on the impact of three intensive health curriculum models (respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems) administered at the fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-grades on the knowledge levels, attitudes, and health behaviors of teenage students. The hypotheses of the study were that students enrolled in one or more units of…

This booklet describes a health education program designed to instruct children in proper health care. The model curriculum for this project consists of three intensive units of study, one each at the fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-grade levels. Each unit is organized around a body system: lungs and respiratory system for the fifth grade, heart and…