Peer-reviewed article
Evaluation of a brief school-based e-cigarette prevention program for elementary school students.
Madeleine A Gerson, Holly Lung, Bonnie Halpern-Felsher ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study evaluated a two-session vaping prevention curriculum delivered to 130 fifth-graders in California schools. Students showed improvements in knowledge about e-cigarettes and their harms after the program. However, a large proportion of students reported having someone close to them who uses vaping products. Teachers confirmed that vaping is a current or emerging problem in their elementary schools.
Key points
- Participants demonstrated improvements in all eight knowledge questions about e-cigarettes (p's < 0.01)
- Two self-efficacy questions and one refusal skills question showed significant improvements (p's < 0.05)
- 44% of participants reported having someone close to them (parent, sibling, or friend) who uses e-cigarettes
- All five participating teachers indicated vaping is currently a problem or becoming one at their schools
- The curriculum consisted of two sessions delivered in elementary schools
Limitations
This study used a pre-post design without a comparison group, so we cannot determine whether improvements would have occurred naturally or with a different program. The study does not measure longer-term outcomes or whether knowledge gains translate into actual reductions in vaping behavior.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: E-cigarette use remains high among children and adolescents. School-based programs that address reasons for use, provide education on risks, and improve refusal skills are important in preventing e-cigarette use. However, we lack evidence-based e-cigarette prevention programs for elementary school students. This program evaluation assesses changes in learning outcomes, refusal skills, coping skills, social self-efficacy, and intentions to use e-cigarettes following implementation of a school-based e-cigarette prevention curriculum. METHODS: Participants in this pre-post evaluation design were 165 fifth-graders from three elementary schools in the San Francisco Bay Area who participated in Stanford REACH Lab's You and Me, Together Vape-free two-session elementary school vaping prevention curriculum. Participants completed pre- and post-curriculum surveys to assess exposure to use, learning outcomes, refusal skills, coping skills, self-efficacy, and intentions to use. The final sample was N = 130, as 130 of the 165 pre-post responses were successfully linked. RESULTS: Participants demonstrated improvements in all eight knowledge questions (p's < 0.01), two self-efficacy questions, and one refusal skills question (p's < 0.05). More than 43% of participants (44.2% pre-curriculum survey and 43.8% post-curriculum survey) responded "True" to the statement, "I have somebody close to me, such as a parent, sibling, or friend who uses e-cigarettes/vapes." All participating teachers who responded to a feedback survey (n = 5) indicated vaping either is currently a problem at their elementary school or that it is becoming one. CONCLUSION: Evaluation of this elementary school-based e-cigarette prevention curriculum indicated that the curriculum increased knowledge of e-cigarettes and related harms.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- You and Me, Together Vape-free two-session school-based e-cigarette prevention curriculum addressing reasons for use, providing education on risks, and teaching refusal skills
- Population
- Fifth-graders (N=130) from three elementary schools in the San Francisco Bay Area
Key finding
All eight knowledge questions showed significant improvements (p's < 0.01)