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The purpose of these studies was to develop and test versions of a psychosocial theoretical model that would have implications for the development of adolescent alcohol misuse prevention strategies. In the first study which was part of a test of a school-based refusal skills prevention program, the theoretical model consisted of the latent variables of age of the child, exposure to peer use and misuse of alcohol, susceptibility to peer pressure, self-esteem, internal health locus of control, and the adolescent's use and misuse of alcohol. Subjects (N=4,157) were grade five and six students. In a second cross-sectional study based on students (N=1,340) in grades 6 through 12, an extension of the theoretical model was tested which added variables of image of self as deviant, exposure to peer misuse of alcohol, family cohesiveness, parental alcohol use and attitudes toward alcohol use, parental alcohol misuse and attitudes toward alcohol misuse, sibling alcohol use and attitudes toward alcohol use, and sibling alcohol misuse and attitudes toward alcohol misuse. Implications of the findings regarding susceptibility to peer pressure, alcohol experimentation, parental nurturance and parental use/norms, and development of alcohol misuse programs are discussed. Two tables and five figures are attached. (ABL)

Although recent survey findings have indicated a decrease in the percentage of teenage smokers, cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. A social learning smoking prevention intervention, consisting of four sessions which occurred at 2-week intervals, was conducted with fifth and sixth graders in two school systems. Schools were randomly assigned to intervention (N=476 students) or control (N=392 students) conditions. Students in the intervention groups learned about the physiological effects of cigarette smoking, the pressures which influence adolescents to smoke, ways to resist peer pressures, and the techniques of cigarette advertising. All students were pretested at the beginning of the first study year and posttested at the end of that school year and the beginning of the next school year. The results indicated a significant treatment x sex x occasion interaction with respect to experimentation with cigarettes; and a significant treatment x school system x occasion interaction with respect to recent cigarette smoking. The intervention was effective in reducing the prevalence of experimentation with cigarettes among boys, but not among girls, in both school systems; and was effective in reducing the onset of more frequent smoking among both sexes in one school system, but not in the other. Social learning intervention may not be effective in schools where a certain threshold level of smoking has been reached. (NRB)

An alcohol misuse prevention study (AMPS) curriculum was developed, implemented, and evaluated with over 5,000 fifth and sixth grade students. The AMPS program, emphasizing peer resistance skills, focused on the immediate effects of alcohol, risks of alcohol misuse, and social pressures to misuse alcohol. Schools were randomly assigned to curriculum, curriculum plus booster, or control groups with one-half of each group pretested and all posttested. Measures focused on alcohol use and misuse, susceptibility to peer pressure, tolerance of deviance, pretest drinking status, prior supervised versus unsupervised drinking, parental drinking, and health locus of control. Results for 791 fifth graders and 714 sixth graders who were pretested and present at all testing occasions revealed that, at the 26-month follow-up, the hypothesized treatment by occasion interaction effect on alcohol use and misuse scores was not significant. Addition of a third factor to analyze the data by various subgroups resulted in significant three-way interactions. Both the treatment and control students with little prior exposure to alcohol use showed relatively small increases in alcohol use and misuse which resulted in no significant differences between these groups at the final posttest, while control students with more prior exposure to alcohol use showed more rapid increases in alcohol use and misuse than did their treatment group counterparts. Nineteen references and seven tables are attached. (Author/NB)

Reviews school-based approaches to prevention of adolescent alcohol use and abuse undertaken in the 1950s through the 1970s and discusses problems associated with such studies, remedies to these problems, and current school-based approaches. Also discusses the Alcohol Misuse Prevention Study, a longitudinal intervention undertaken in the 1980s to examine factors which contribute to adolescent alcohol use and abuse. (MDM)

Surveyed 1,340 students in grades 6 through 12 to test model of antecedents of adolescent alcohol use/misuse. Found that two largest direct effects on both adolescent alcohol use and misuse were from susceptibility to peer pressure and peer use and approval of alcohol use. Other predictors, including parental behaviors, were significant when indirect effects were evaluated. (Author/NB)