Health educators in elementary and secondary schools should seek collaborations with teachers of other subjects to enhance health education curriculum. The strategy described in this article details a potential collaboration between health education and language arts units. The activity enhances both drug education knowledge gains and creative…

Administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Drug Free Communities Support Program (DFC) is a federal grant program that provides funding to community-based coalitions that organize to prevent youth substance use. Since the…

Objective: Based on conceptual models of addiction and affect regulation, this study examined the mechanisms linking current major depressive syndrome (MDS) and anxiety syndrome (AS) to postpartum smoking relapse. Method: Data were collected in a randomized clinical trial from 251 women who quit smoking during pregnancy. Simple and multiple…

Rural adolescents are at risk for early initiation and problematic substance use, but to date few studies have examined the rural context of substance use. To better understand substance offers in the rural context, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 118, 12- to 19-year-old adolescents (M = 13.68, SD = 1.37) from Appalachian, rural…

Purpose: Little is known about health-related advertising on university environments. Given the power of advertising and its potential effect on health behaviors, the purpose of this paper is to assess the health-related advertisement environment and policies on university campuses. Design/methodology/approach: In total, ten geographically and…

Research has documented that children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at increased risk of substance use problems. Few studies, however, have focused on early-onset substance use. This study therefore investigated how the two symptom dimensions of ADHD (hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention) are…

Much public attention and many resources are focused on medical research to identify risk factors and mitigate symptoms of disability for individual children. But this focus will inevitably fail to "prevent" disabilities. Stephen Rauch and Bruce Lanphear argue for a broader focus on environmental influences that put entire populations at risk.…

This study examined interactive relationships among ethnic identity, gender, time in the US, and changes in substance use outcomes among a school-based sample of 1,731 Mexican-heritage preadolescents (ages 9-13). Residual change multilevel models adjusting for school clustering and using multiply imputed data assessed changes from beginning to end…

The present study constitutes an investigation of tobacco consumption, related attitudes and individual differences in smoking or non-smoking behaviors in a sample of adolescents of different ages in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. We investigated three school-age groups (7th-grade, 9th-grade, and the second-year of high school) for…

The prevalence of drug abuse has been reported to be up to 17.0% in Iran. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of two frequently abused substances--cannabis and opium--in samples of the young population in Isfahan, Iran. In a survey done from January 2005 to December 2006, 537 individuals aged 13-20 years were recruited using a…

This article makes the case that there has been insufficient global attention to the health and development of children in the second decade of life. The author uses her vantage point of UNICEF to identify that institution's history of accomplishments for younger children and the opportunity to increase its work on adolescents, in collaboration…

Background: The behavioural determinants of health among people with mild/moderate intellectual disabilities (ID) are of increasing concern. With the closure of long-stay institutions, more people with ID are living in the community. As they lead more ordinary and less restricted lives, people with ID may be exposed to social and environmental…

Survey data on the problem of drug abuse in Russia show a high level of awareness of the issue among young people. To reduce the level of drug use in Russia, a comprehensive, focused, and coordinated program involving representatives of official state and social institutions, as well as institutions of civil society, is needed. Combining their…

Engagement in excessive sedentary behaviour represents a health risk for adolescents. The current study aimed to investigate patterns of sedentary behaviour amongst Irish female adolescents aged between 15 and 19 years old. 314 adolescents completed a questionnaire on their sedentary behaviour habits, health behaviours (physical activity, smoking,…

Scientific discoveries repeatedly confirmed the importance of brain growth during the first 5 years of child life. To support early childhood development, California voters passed Proposition 10 in 1998 to collect a 50 cent per pack tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products. Kern County Children and Families Commission (First 5 Kern) was…