A Health Promoting School Program on Smoking Control

Rates of smoking are showing an increasing trend among youth in Taiwan. The purpose of this study was to develop strategies for community building to initiate a health promoting school program in selected junior high school in Taipei City. Forty student leaders were invited to attennd a series of empowerment activities including communication skills, health assessment, health promotion club, named “Ha-Dou-Hsia”, in March 2000. A series of contests focusing on smoking control were promoted at the school by these students during the period from April to May. These contests included dancing,drawing,poetry and song composition, basketball playing,and Chinese comical dialogue. On May 31, World No Tobacco Day, these students organized a school fair involving all school members, students' patents, community residents, city councils, local public representatives, and the owners of private businesses. In order to evaluate program effectiveness, pre and post surveys were conducted among half of the classes from the experimental school and the comparison school chosen randomly. A total of 597 students completed both the pre-test in January and the post-test in June. The students at the experimental school demonstrated significant and positive changes in knowledge about the dangers of smoking, attitudes towards smoking, awareness of the importance of non-smoking and health, and accessibility of anti-smoking information and services. The results suggest that a health promoting school program can successfully adopt the strategies of community building to empower students' capabilities to engage in healthy lifestyles and build a supportive school environment for healthy living.