Engaging Ethnically Diverse Teens in a Substance Use Prevention Advocacy Program

Abstract

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.

A pilot study evaluating the effects of a youth advocacy program on youth readiness to advocate for environment and policy changes for obesity prevention

“…Two studies [9,35] found that perceived self-efficacy significantly increased among youth following tobacco control advocacy activities. Youth outcome expectancy, leadership competence, and perceived policy control findings did not change significantly, similar to the present study's findings [35]. However, in a follow-up tobacco study, outcome expectancy did significantly increase, following successful advocacy activities [9].…”

“…One previous tobacco advocacy study found that gender was associated with advocacy outcomes and that Black and Hispanic youth trended toward having higher advocacy readiness [35]. A high school-based youth empowerment for heart health study found that being Black (vs. White) was significantly associated with community participation [36].…”

Youth advocacy for obesity prevention: the next wave of social change for health

“…Fourth, young people tend to possess enthusiasm and optimism that can be harnessed to promote community-based changes. Winkleby et al [70] showed that youth who became involved with an advocacy program were able to enact changes in their school and community environments. Fifth, risk of obesity is highest among low-income groups and communities of color [41,47], so efforts to reduce health disparities could benefit from emphasizing youth advocacy as an additional tool.…”

“…The success of advocacy depends in part on individual attributes of advocates such as perceived incentive value, outcome expectancies, self-efficacy, perceived policy control, leadership competence, and sense of community [70]. The skills and behaviors at the core of advocacy include increased network communication, negotiation, public education, media contact, public participation, and vocalizing one's beliefs [70,72].…”

“…The skills and behaviors at the core of advocacy include increased network communication, negotiation, public education, media contact, public participation, and vocalizing one's beliefs [70,72]. In the political, health, and social justice fields, advocacy is commonly used to bring about changes at multiple levels of influence, such as organizational and governmental [3,15,28,74].…”