EMPOWERMENT, ALCOHOL, 8TH GRADE STUDENTS AND HEALTH PROMOTION

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.