Describes the process evaluation of facilitator training for a risk-reduction program that trained college students and community volunteers to teach middle school students. Examination of facilitator characteristics and training, curriculum implementation, and use of the model to promote critical thinking found that most facilitators considered…

Describes the evolution, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of comprehensive school-based mental health services in the Dallas, Texas public schools. A collaboration between mental health services, other health services, and the schools established 10 Youth and Family Centers to serve local schools. Benefits and challenges to coordinated…

Presents information from a 1996 meeting by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Adolescent and School Health and the American Nurses Association's National Center for School Health Nursing. Participants reviewed progress since 1994 on seven critical needs, updated priority actions, determined strategies for achieving…

Examined the effects of a multicomponent, four-year hearing-conservation program for farm youth. Researchers conducted pre- and postintervention hearing tests in control and intervention students. Surveys examined family hearing loss, farm work, noise exposure, and hearing-protection device (HPD) utilization. Significantly more intervention…

Identified barriers that delay seeking professional care following school vision screening. Focus groups of parents, students, teachers, school and community health professionals, and community leaders highlighted several barriers, including lack of community awareness about certain visual problems, high costs of glasses, inconvenient appointment…

Schedules, characteristics, and wellness needs of community college students are often very different from those of traditional college students, and wellness programs at these institutions have an important impact on students' lives, both during and after the college experience. Issues to be considered include assessment of the needs of a diverse…

Presents eight papers: "Physical Activity and Health"; "Exercise and Physical Health"; "Exercise and Physical Health: Cancer and Immune Function"; "Exercise and Psychosocial Health"; "Physical Activity, Health, and Wellbeing at Different Life Stages"; "Descriptive Epidemiology of…

Medical students conducted an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome/human immunodeficiency virus (AIDS/HIV) education program for 2,169 high school students. Preintervention and postintervention surveys indicated that students significantly increased their AIDS/HIV knowledge after the program, though over half remained sexually active and practiced…

Discusses social influence and social cognition's effect on health and social well-being, and examines the efficacy of public health campaigns, the effects of negative stereotyping, and why some teenagers resist drug use and others do not as part of the social problems addressed by behavioral science research. Future directions for research on…

Discusses common misconceptions about physical activity among children (e.g., children are fragile, children are miniature adults, girls are not interested in physical activity, and all skills are motor skills), offering alternatives for change (e.g., recognizing children's unique physical activity needs, promoting opportunities for girls, and…

Peer education is a critical approach to HIV prevention. The current study evaluated 156 peer outreach educators 6 months after their 10-session training. Specifically, we examined factors associated with talking to network members about HIV-related topics as well as distributing risk reduction materials. Overall, current drug users were less…

North Carolina A&T does it. Across the street, Bennett College does it too. So do Elizabeth City State University, Livingstone and Fayetteville State. These North Carolina-based historically Black institutions have made HIV/AIDS education a part of the student experience at their respective campuses, and one school, Johnson C. Smith…

Reports on the creation of a public health degree at Dine College in Shiprock, New Mexico, the first degree of its kind at a "tribal college". Review of the work of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium and the Centers for Disease Control, who developed the degree with the goal of increasing the number of American Indians in…

Relatively little is known about risk behaviors of elementary school children. A recent evaluation of a comprehensive school health education curriculum provided an opportunity to survey elementary school children about their perceived health status, knowledge, attitudes, health self-efficacy, and health and risk behaviors. For the evaluation, a…

In the Screening Older Minority Women project, the authors applied a community capacity-enhancement approach to promoting breast and cervical cancer screening among older women of color. Members of informal support networks were recruited for this health promotion intervention to empower Latina and African American women to engage in positive…