How can young people be shielded against smoking and engaging in other risky behaviors?

That’s one of the key questions Deborah Parra-Medina, public
health; DeAnne K. Hilfinger Messias, nursing; and Louise Jennings, education, are trying to answer. They are using money from the federal government’s master settlement against tobacco companies to fund a $576,000, three-year study about what works best to help kids avoid smoking and other harmful behaviors.

“We’re funded to look at how you structure a program to give kids the experiences they need to become empowered and take charge of their lives in positive, healthy ways,” Parra-Medina said. “We are interested in the activities, philosophies, and other concepts
that engage youth.”

A partnership between the American Legacy Foundation in Washington, D.C., set up as a result of the settlement against the tobacco companies, and the Centers for Disease Control Foundation is funding the project. Dennis Shepard, deputy director to USC’s Prevention Research Center, serves as a co-investigator.

During the first year of the grant, the research team has reviewed literature and identified a demographic cross-section of state youth empowerment programs dealing with tobacco use prevention and other initiatives. They’ve also agreed on a definition of youth empowerment, which is an effort that brings young people together to bring about social change.

During the summer, the researchers conducted qualitative research of a tobacco-prevention program called True View, observing the youth group and how it conducted business. This fall, the team is looking at four other programs. The data collected this year will be used to develop the researchers’ evaluation model for youth empowerment programs. In the second and third years of the project, the team will validate the model, then look at how they can encourage others to adopt it, modify it according to their local contexts, and evaluate its use in different domains.

Although their research is a case study of how empowerment works in tobacco prevention, the researchers also are working to identify life skills that will help young people avoid other negative behaviors and take responsible, healthy actions in their lives.

“That is what a lot of the interdisciplinary discourse revolves around,” Parra-Medina said. “We see empowerment in different areas, and we think it can be used in a variety of situations, not just with children but also with adults.”

USC’s Women’s Studies program brought the three researchers together.The grant started with four investigators, all from public health. But when two co-researchers moved on to other jobs, Parra-Medina, who authored the grant and is principal investigator, saw an opportunity to expand the view of the project and supplement research skills by recruiting Messias and Jennings.

“The Prevention Research Center has been supportive of an interdisciplinary approach and encourages more partnerships to be formed by School of Public Health researchers,” Parra-Medina said. “Women’s Studies was key to this because it is an interdisciplinary forum, and the connections we’re drawing on in the research were all made there,” Messias said. “One of the things that is often difficult in interdisciplinary research is getting out of your own turf and building those bridges to other areas. Because of Women’s Studies, we didn’t have to build those bridges.”

“Being in education, it is challenging to have access to this kind of funding,” Jennings said. “This interdisciplinary work has opened up a lot of doors for me. It’s allowed me to make contributions from my background in education, qualitative research, and multi-cultural issues.”

In addition to being an interdisciplinary research project at the University, the grant also has become a partnership with other state agencies and programs.

“We’re working with programs to learn how to build a youth program,” Parra-Medina said. “We have partnered with other state
agencies, from the departments of health and environmental control, to education and alcohol and other drug services, who all have an interest in these program models and may be the key facilitators or disseminators of youth empowerment programs in the future.”