Empowering youth for tobacco control

Purpose. To investigate common youth group activities and how they relate to young people's attitudes of empowerment around tobacco control. Design. A mailed survey was administered to 940 Minnesota youth involved in locally organized tobacco prevention groups. By multivariate linear regression, participation in eight tobacco-related activities and selected personal characteristics were examined in relation to youths' perceived influence on youth smoking. Results. Two activities–developing materials with antismoking messages and taking action to change school smoking policies—were associated with significantly higher perceived influence scores for the youth involved (p < .05). Youth in groups who had worked to raise awareness of how the tobacco industry targets teens also had significantly higher influence scores (p < .001). Associated personal factors included high involvement in extracurricular activities (p < .001), having never experimented with smoking (p < .01), leadership experience (p < .001), and being white (p < .01). Discussion. Some youth group activities and strategies may be particularly effective at instilling attitudes of empowerment for tobacco control among youth.