Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

W B Hansen

Publications and source records attributed to W B Hansen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Verifying drug abuse prevention program effects using reciprocal best friend reports.

Considerable research suggests that social influences-based drug abuse prevention programming has produced the most consistently successful preventive effects. However, a common criticism of this literature is that most prevention intervention studies rely solely on self-reported substance use. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of normative education, arguably the most successful component of social influence based prevention programs, on alcohol and cigarette consumption using both self- and reciprocal best friend reports of substance use. Analyses of subsamples of data from 11,995 students participating in the Adolescent Alcohol Prevention Trial revealed that normative education significantly delayed the onset of alcohol use across the eighth, ninth, and tenth grades among public school students. A similar but somewhat less robust pattern was found for cigarette use. These results suggest that self-report bias does not account for previous findings and demonstrate rather convincingly that normative education is an effective drug prevention strategy for public school settings.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Modeling prevention program effects on growth in substance use: analysis of five years of data from the Adolescent Alcohol Prevention Trial.

The efficacy of prevention programs is typically determined through analysis of covariance. To date, a growth curve modeling approach is not used extensively in program evaluation. However, for longitudinal data there are several advantages to using this approach as compared to methods comparing means at two time points in a piecemeal fashion. In this study, latent growth curve models were used to evaluate the effect of a program on the average level of drug use, rate of change (growth) of drug use, and acceleration or deceleration in the rate of change of drug use. The study relied on data from the Adolescent Alcohol Prevention Trial, a randomized longitudinal drug use prevention program. The program consists of drug use information, resistance skills training, and normative education components. Data regarding cigarette and alcohol use were collected over a 5-year period, grade 7 to grade 11. Students receiving the normative education program had significantly lower average levels of reported cigarette and alcohol use, lower rates of growth for reported cigarette and alcohol use, and less deceleration of reported levels of cigarette and alcohol use as compared with the control group. Growth curve analysis is a powerful and effective tool with which to model change and program efficacy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Drug education practice: results of an observational study.

Understanding normative practice in drug education is a key to identifying means of improving preventive intervention outcomes. In this paper, we report findings of an observational study in which drug education in multiple periods of 146 middle school classes was categorized minute-by-minute according to the type of instruction provided to students. Results indicate that nearly half of all drug education focused on providing students with knowledge. Alternative methods, particularly those that have shown programmatic effectiveness, and those that address risk and protective factors known to be highly predictive of drug use onset, were relatively ignored. Further, teachers showed relatively low consistency in understanding concepts other than knowledge based on comparisons of their ratings of intended instructions with those of trained observers. Nonetheless, there is evidence that some teachers systematically attempted to address drug prevention from either a social influence or an affective education perspective. These findings suggest that if improvements in the effectiveness of drug education are to be seen in the future, a relatively radical transformation of approaches to teaching will be needed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

The Adolescent Sexual Activity Index (ASAI): a standardized strategy for measuring interpersonal heterosexual behaviors among youth.

This study reports on the properties of a standardized measure that is used to index the spectrum of sexual behaviors typical of adolescents. Prior work has shown sexual behaviors to be ordered and progressive. Using pre-coitus sexual behaviors that did not refer to sex organs and self-reports of sexual intercourse, a 13-item index was developed. The index was standardized with values ranging from 0.0 to 10.0. Measures were administered to 1493 female and 1073 male black and white adolescents aged 12-19 years in community settings. Analyses reveal the index to have high internal consistency and to perform as a psychometrically sound dependent variable. Because the index uses conservative language, its use may avoid the controversy common to much of the research on adolescent sexuality. The Adolescent Sexual Activity Index will provide researchers and practitioners with an interpretable tool for examining developmental patterns that precede sexual intercourse.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

How D.A.R.E. works: an examination of program effects on mediating variables.

The D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program has relied on a curriculum that addresses a variety of psychosocial processes thought to be related to substance use and potentially modifiable through programmatic intervention. This study examines 12 postulated mediators of substance use prevention programs to determine the degree to which D.A.R.E. has an effect on mediators and the degree to which those effects account for behavioral outcomes of the program. Results indicate that the primary effect of D.A.R.E. is a change in commitment to not use substances. This change significantly mediates behavioral effects. However, the magnitude of D.A.R.E.'s effect on the mediator is relatively small. Other mediators that offer strong potential paths for intervention effectiveness are not affected by the program. These results suggest that in order to achieve prevention effectiveness, the curriculum used in the D.A.R.E. program needs to be replaced with one that targets and meaningfully changes appropriate mediating variables.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Pilot test results comparing the All Stars program with seventh grade D.A.R.E.: program integrity and mediating variable analysis.

A pilot test of a new program, All Stars, was completed. Four variables known from prior research to mediate high-risk behaviors were measured: 1) personal commitment to avoid participating in high-risk behaviors, 2) ideals incongruent with high-risk behaviors, 3) bonding with prosocial institutions, and 4) conventional beliefs about social norms regarding high-risk behaviors. Compared to students who received the seventh grade D.A.R.E. program, students' who received the All Stars program had significantly better outcomes on each mediator. All Stars students also gave superior ratings to the program and their involvement in it.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

The television, school, and family smoking prevention and cessation project. VIII. Student outcomes and mediating variables.

BACKGROUND: This paper presents the student outcomes of a large-scale, social-influences-based, school and media-based tobacco use prevention and cessation project in Southern California. METHODS: The study provided an experimental comparison of classroom delivery with television delivery and the combination of the two in a 2 x 2 plus 1 design. Schools were randomly assigned to conditions. Control groups included "treatment as usual" and an "attention control" with the same outcome expectancies as the treatment conditions. Students were surveyed twice in grade 7 and once in each of grades 8 and 9. The interventions occurred during grade 7. RESULTS: We observed significant effects on mediating variables such as knowledge and prevalence estimates, and coping effort. The knowledge and prevalence estimates effects decayed partially but remained significant up to a 2-year follow-up. The coping effort effect did not persist at follow-ups. There were significant main effects of both classroom training and TV programming on knowledge and prevalence estimates and significant interactions of classroom and TV programming on knowledge (negative), disapproval of parental smoking, and coping effort. There were no consistent program effects on refusal/self-efficacy, smoking intentions, or behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Previous reports demonstrated successful development and pilot testing of program components and measures and high acceptance of the program by students and parents. The lack of behavioral effects may have been the result of imperfect program implementation or low base rates of intentions and behavior.

Child↗
PubMed1995

Resistance-skills training and onset of alcohol use: evidence for beneficial and potentially harmful effects in public schools and in private Catholic schools.

Recent research suggests that the success of social influence prevention programs is due to enhancing an adolescent's ability to resist passive social pressure (e.g., social modeling and overestimation of peer use), and is not due to teaching refusal skills for combating active social pressure (i.e., alcohol and drug offers). Using 4 waves of longitudinal data (collected in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades) from 11,995 students participating in the Adolescent Alcohol Prevention Trial, resistance-skills training was found to be an effective strategy for preventing the onset of alcohol use when program assumptions were met. However, a counterproductive effect was found for adolescents attending public school who received a resistance training only condition.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Recreational use of inhalant drugs by adolescents: a challenge for family physicians.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This paper assesses the incidence and prevalence of inhalant use in an adolescent population. The purpose was to document patterns of incidence and prevalence. METHODS: A survey study was conducted, in which self-reported measures of inhalant use were assessed during 3 consecutive years. All surveys were completed as part of a school-based study. The responses of 10,198 middle school and high school students were analyzed. The primary measures included self-reported use of substances that were inhaled to create a state of euphoria. RESULTS: Of the responding students, overall rates of 12.8% for lifetime use and 4.6% for past-month use were observed. Cross-sectional analysis revealed increasing inhalant use among students in grades 6-8 that leveled off in grade 9 and decreased in grades 10-12. Incidence of inhalant use was found to be increasing in younger adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: Inhalant use may be an early marker of substance abuse and should be the focus of increased prevention and early diagnosis and treatment. Family physicians may be among the first to suspect inhalant use in casual users and should be alert to inhalant use among adolescent patients.

Administration, Inhalation↗
PubMed1994

Prevention of alcohol use and abuse.

The primary goal of educational alcohol prevention programs is to lower the overall prevalence of alcohol use and abuse among populations at risk for negative alcohol-related outcomes. Youth are primarily targeted for prevention since there is ample evidence that alcohol-related injuries constitute a major risk for this group in particular. Prevention includes a goal to delay the onset of regular consumption and decrease high-risk consumption among youth who do drink. No matter what definition of alcohol use or abuse is adopted, the goal of prevention is to lower the proportion of youth who engage in that type of use. Among those who already use or abuse alcohol by any definition, the goal of prevention is to reduce the average intensity of use and prevent the progression of consumption to more severe levels. Reducing high-risk consumption may include preventing drinking while driving as well as promoting "responsible" drinking. Prevention programs may include a focus on reducing or eliminating consumption among occasional users. Prevention is also targeted at adults, primarily focusing on reduction of alcohol-impaired driving, reduction of alcohol-related violence, and reduction of alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed1994

Testing the generalizability of intervening mechanism theories: understanding the effects of adolescent drug use prevention interventions.

Outcome research has shown that drug prevention programs based on theories of social influence often prevent the onset of adolescent drug use. However, little is known empirically about the processes through which they have their effects. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate intervening mechanism theories of two program models for preventing the onset of adolescent drug use. Analyses based on a total of 3077 fifth graders participating in the Adolescent Alcohol Prevention Trial revealed that both normative education and resistance training activated the causal processes they targeted. While beliefs about prevalence and acceptability significantly mediated the effects of normative education on subsequent adolescent drug use, resistance skills did not significantly predict subsequent drug use. More impressively, this pattern of results was virtually the same across sex, ethnicity, context (public versus private school students), drugs (alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana) and levels of risk and was durable across time. These findings strongly suggest that successful social influence-based prevention programs may be driven primarily by their ability to foster social norms that reduce an adolescent's social motivation to begin using alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Peer influence on smoking initiation during early adolescence: a comparison of group members and group outsiders.

In this study, the authors compared group members' and group outsiders' susceptibility to the influence of their friends' smoking. Ss were nonsmokers in Grade 7 who were observed for 1 year. Consistent with their hypothesis, the authors found that group outsiders (Ss who did not have reciprocal friends) were affected more by the smoking of their best friend and by the overall level of smoking among their friends than group members were. Furthermore, this peer influence was strongest for teens who were very concerned about their friends' reactions to their substance use. In addition, consistency in smoking status was related to the formation, but not the breakdown, of reciprocal friendships. Results indicated that teenagers may view smoking as a vehicle for entering a desired friendship group. The authors suggest ways that prevention programs might address this mechanism for adolescent smoking initiation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Latent transition analysis and how it can address prevention research questions.

The objective of this chapter is to introduce latent transition analysis (LTA) to the substance use prevention research community. LTA is a new methodological technique for testing stage-sequential models, such as models of substance use onset. LTA estimates several different sets of parameters. One of these sets is the transition probability matrix, which contains information about the probability of movement between stages in the model. LTA can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of prevention intervention programs by comparing the transition probability matrices of the program and control groups. If the prevention program is successful, the transition probability matrices will indicate that the probability of moving to a more advanced stage of drug use is lower for the program participants than for the control group. An advantage of taking a stage-sequential approach is that examining the transition probability matrix reveals how effective a program is for individuals entering the program with different levels and types of substance use experience. In this chapter, LTA is used to evaluate a variety of models of the early onset process separately for Anglo, Latino, and Asian-American adolescents, measured in seventh grade and again in eighth grade. Although somewhat different models are found to fit the three ethnic groups best, the differences likely are due to differences in the overall amount of substance use experience. Based on these results, it is suggested that, to be most effective, prevention programs should take place earlier for Anglos and Latinos, and later, followed by boosters, for Asian Americans.

Alcohol Drinking↗