The authors structured an antialcohol intervention program for adolescents to help them develop negative attitudes toward alcohol advertising, to develop strategies for coping with the techniques used in alcohol advertisements, and to reduce their intentions to drink in the future. The authors derived the program from theories of inoculation, reactance, associative learning, and persuasion knowledge. Young adolescents who experienced the intervention—in particular, those who had drunk alcohol—reported greater understanding of persuasive strategies, more critical attitudes toward alcohol advertising and advertisers, and greater intentions not to drink in the future than those in the control group. The intervention appeared to be successful in helping the adolescents develop persuasion-coping behaviors; they reported that they would increase their vigilance and counterarguments when confronted with alcohol advertising in the future.

Model programs and standards for substance abuse prevention have been identified by a number of federal agencies. The study reported here assessed two methods of delivery of one such program, Life Skills Training (LST), implemented in nine rural disadvantaged school districts. The results indicate that neither standard LST nor an infused LST delivery method was found effective for the entire sample, although some encouraging results were found for the females in the study. This study, conducted by researchers independent of the LST program, is useful for school decision makers in determining what programs are most effective with which groups. It included all students with parental permission, controlling for prior use levels, unlike some previous LST studies. The results of the program, as implemented by regular classroom teachers, reflect many issues relevant to recruitment, training, implementation, adaptation, and institutionalization of prevention programming.

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