Effect of two years of educational intervention on adolescent smoking (the North Karelia Youth Project).

A two-year educational intervention programme was carried out to try to prevent the onset of smoking among 13-15-year-olds in the county of North Karelia in eastern Finland. The aim of the programme was to teach the children skills to resist social pressures towards smoking. Older students (peer leaders) were trained to conduct the programme, which was directly managed in two schools and voluntarily implemented by the staff of about half of the remaining 23 schools in the county. Both types of intervention were associated with a significant reduction in self-reported onset rates of smoking. It is concluded that this type of innovative approach, based on modern psychosocial principles, is needed to control the smoking epidemic among adolescents.