C. Jeffrey Frame

Claudia G. Green

David G. Herr

Jane E. Myers

Information on stage of readiness to change and food consumption was collected on all but one of the 244 patients admitted to a cardiac rehabilitation program in a North Carolina hospital. Useable data was available on 226 of them. Almost 79% were in action or maintenance for reducing fat consumption, while 81% were in precontemplation or contemplation for increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. Actual fruit and vegetable and fat consumption was consistent with the measured stages of readiness to change.

Pebbles Fagan

Marla Eisenberg

Anne M. Stoddard

Lindsay Frazier

A cross-sectional survey of adolescents, ages 15-18, working in 10 grocery stores produced 379 useable responses (83% response rate) to a 100 item questionnaire on interpersonal, intrapersonal and organizational factors that influence tobacco use behavior. Regular smokers were 30% more likely to receive co-worker encouragement to quit than occasional and experimental smokers, but 3% more likely to receive friend encouragement to smoke. Former and never smokers were 15% more likely to perceive that smoking was unacceptable among their peers than smokers, but there was no difference in the perceived smoking rates. Girls objected to secondhand smoke more than boys.

Kimberly A. Williams

Maria M. Kolar

Bill E. Reger

A randomized controlled trial involving 32 subjects in the intervention group and 26 in the control group showed that an intensive eight week intervention based on "mindfulness meditation" produced significant decreases in impact of daily hassles, psychological distress, and medical symptoms at completion of the program and three months later. All of these changes were statistically significantly greater than the control group, which received educational materials and was encouraged to draw on community resources.

Marilyn A. Winkleby

Ellen C. Feighery

David A. Altman

Sara Kole

Teen Activists for Community Change and Leadership Education is designed to engage high school students living in low-income neighborhoods in community advocacy efforts to transform their schools and communities so they do not reinforce use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. This nine month intervention for 116 freshmen and sophomores in and near San Jose, California consisted of 30-90 minute meetings. Social cognitive constructs of sense of community, perceived self-efficacy, outcome expectancies, incentive value, policy control, and leadership competence guided the program. No changes in individual use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs were observed by the end of the program, but improvements in community involvement and self-perception of many of the constructs were observed.

Jamison A. Whiteman

David A. Snyder

A health promotion program called the "Green H Award" was implemented in 1996 for the SURFPAC commands, which represented 35,000 Navy and Marine personnel serving in the Naval Surface Force of the US Pacific Fleet, in an effort to reduce rates of smoking, alcohol abuse, obesity, and poor fitness. Commands which had leadership involvement in their health promotion effort had higher levels of implementation, success, and maintenance. Measures of all these health risks improved substantially between 1996 and 1999; however, the response rates for the measures was highly variable.