One method in which health professionals can influence adolescent substance use is by correcting social norms. According to the social norms theory, individuals often erroneously believe that the majority of people engage in unhealthy behaviors, a misperception that may motivate individuals to increase their own unhealthy behaviors. The social…

In the traditional public school system, the varied pace of student learning is often lost, and replaced with a "one size fits all" expectation for grade-level cohorts of students using normed, standards-based assessments. This reliance on cohort-based test scores continues through high school. Traditional measures are designed primarily…

The purpose of this report was to evaluate a prevention program to reduce risk factors for common diseases among older individuals in a lower income community. This randomized community-based study enrolled older adults into a Brief Education and Counseling Intervention or a Brief Education and Counseling Intervention plus a physical activity and…

There are only a few process evaluation studies on positive youth development programs, particularly in the Chinese context. Objectives: This study aims to examine the quality of implementation of a positive youth development program (Project Positive Adolescent Training through Holistic Social Programs [P.A.T.H.S.]) and investigate the…

Anxiety disorders are prevalent in the school-aged population and are present across cultural groups. Scant research exists on culturally relevant prevention and intervention programs for mental health problems in the Aboriginal populations. An established cognitive behavioral program, FRIENDS for Life, was enriched to include content that was…

This exploratory study investigates the psychological effect of the 2006 war on Lebanese children. A sample of 110 exposed and 105 nonexposed children (9-12 years) balanced for age and gender were assessed using Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The analysis aimed at investigating the effect of proximity, exposure to combat, and family…

The assessment of needs plays a relevant role in the training for preventing of risks at work into school, as it is a scientific procedure to identify and prioritise problems existing within an educative context. This type of assessment is the starting point for a subsequent planning of the educative interventions that will enable pupils and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between cyberbullying victimization and internalizing problems among the youth. Moderator effects of a friendship quality were also investigated to examine if higher friendship quality moderated the negative effects of cyberbullying on psychological states of students.…

This study explored the drug resistance strategies that urban American Indian adolescents consider the best and worst ways to respond to offers of alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana. Focus group data were collected from 11 female and 9 male American Indian adolescents attending urban middle schools in the southwest. The youth were presented with…

Efforts to prevent and curb school bullying have resulted in a proliferation of anti-school-bullying programmes, many based on intuitive appeal rather than systematic evidence. This article presents a comparative analysis of two Norwegian programmes whose developers have demonstrated the effectiveness of their interventions: the Olweus Programme…

Computer-based video provides a valuable tool for HIV prevention in hospital emergency departments. However, the type of video content and protocol that will be most effective remain underexplored and the subject of debate. This study employs a new and highly replicable methodology that enables comparisons of multiple video segments, each based on…

A family history of neural tube defects (NTDs) can increase the risk of a pregnancy affected by an NTD. Periconceptional folic acid use decreases this risk. Purpose: Our objective was to determine whether second-degree relatives of NTD-affected children showed differences in folic acid use compared with the general population and to provide them…

Risk for peer victimization varies by ethnicity, but few studies explore how the ethnic context of the school can affect this. Using a large sample of schools and high school students, we used hierarchical linear modeling to explore victimization risk by ethnicity within the ethnic context of the school. Models predicted total, physical, verbal,…

Young people are likely to experience noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), as the use of personal listening devices and other damaging factors (e.g., video games) increases. Little research has examined the role of school health personnel in the prevention and early identification of hearing impairment. A 32-item, valid and reliable survey was…

Children with developmental disabilities are at substantially greater risk of developing emotional and behavioural problems compared to their typically developing peers. While the quality of parenting that children receive has a major effect on their development, empirically supported parenting programs reach relatively few parents. A recent trend…