QUALITATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF SMOKING PREVENTION PROGRAMMING FOR MINORITY YOUTH

Brief discussion groups were completed with 211 predominantly African American and Latino seventh graders to investigate reasons for adolesc ent smoking and perceived efficacious smoking prevention program strat egies. Study data consisted of audiotaped group discussions, which wer e content-coded, and open-ended posttest responses. The results indica ted that, through use of relatively nondirected methods, reasons for s moking and smoking prevention methods generated by African American an d Latino youth were similar to those popularly endorsed by white youth s in previous research. Perhaps, optimal program contents are similar across ethnic groups. Still, one map speculate that identification wit h and diffusion of prevention messages may be maximized if they demons trate cultural relevancy.