Advocates of empowerment claim it should be a major goal of health pro
motion efforts. However, it is unclear whether concepts of adult psych
ological empowerment can be applied to adolescents. This pilot study s
ought to test the psychometric properties of an instrument used to ass
ess empowerment (adapted to use with adolescents), to test the associa
tion of alcohol-specific psychological empowerment with adolescent alc
ohol use, and to test the association of participation in an alcohol p
revention school curriculum with alcohol-specific psychological empowe
rment. Sixty 8th grade students were assessed before and after impleme
ntation of school-based curriculum (''PowerLines'') designed to empowe
r students around alcohol use. Cronbach's alpha was computed using bas
eline data (.80). Multiple regression analyses were performed using em
powerment and alcohol use as dependent variables. Empowerment scores d
id increase at post-test, but the difference was not statistically sig
nificant. Empowerment was significantly and inversely associated with
alcohol use after controlling for peer influence and self-efficacy (p=
.035). Active participation in a group project was positively associat
ed with psychological empowerment (p=.01). Results suggest that psycho
logical empowerment is a theoretically meaningful construct applied to
adolescents and is significantly associated with an important adolesc
ent health behavior - alcohol use.