| dc.description.abstract | The leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States is tobacco product use. The 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which was completed in 2022, showed that the e-cigarette epidemic among youth continues to remain a public health threat. The survey revealed that over 2.5 million middle and high school students currently use e-cigarettes.
The purpose of this project was to provide youth with evidence-based education in a classroom setting. The education was designed to increase participant knowledge about health-related concerns of ENDS products, decrease participant intent to use ENDS products, and foster sustainability through training a school staff member in CATCH My Breath (CATCH, 2022). Seventh grade students at Kindred Middle School were educated using the CATCH My Breath (CATCH, 2022) vaping prevention program. The education was taught by the co-investigator and occurred in one class period for four weeks. This project was evaluated using pre- and post-survey results from the students.
The need for e-cigarette prevention in youth is evident. While the knowledge questions from this project did not show a statistically significant change, students demonstrated through comments, class discussion, and activity completion that they found the experience to be beneficial and educational. Enhanced knowledge is expected to decrease students’ intent to use ENDS products in the future. Lastly, staff member CATCH My Breath (CATCH, 2022) training was accomplished on the last day of implementation. E-cigarette prevention is recommended due to continued rise in youth’s e-cigarette use and the significant harm associated with it. | en_US |
