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Project SHOUT (Students Helping Others Understand Tobacco)

Public Health & Prevention: School-based
  Literature review updated January 2019.

Project SHOUT is a middle school-based smoking prevention program delivered by college undergraduates. In the 7th grade, students receive six weekly lessons in the fall and four monthly lessons in the spring. In the 8th grade students received eight monthly lessons with follow-up phone calls when they were in the 9th and 10th grades. The program teaches peer pressure resistance skills and includes instruction about the health and social consequences of tobacco use.
 
ALL
META-ANALYSIS
CITATIONS

Meta-analysis is a statistical method to combine the results from separate studies on a program, policy, or topic to estimate its effect on an outcome. WSIPP systematically evaluates all credible evaluations we can locate on each topic. The outcomes measured are the program impacts measured in the research literature (for example, impacts on crime or educational attainment). Treatment N represents the total number of individuals or units in the treatment group across the included studies.

An effect size (ES) is a standard metric that summarizes the degree to which a program or policy affects a measured outcome. If the effect size is positive, the outcome increases. If the effect size is negative, the outcome decreases. See Estimating Program Effects Using Effect Sizes for additional information on how we estimate effect sizes.

The effect size may be adjusted from the unadjusted effect size estimated in the meta-analysis. Historically, WSIPP adjusted effect sizes to some programs based on the methodological characteristics of the study. For programs reviewed in 2024 or later, we do not make additional adjustments, and we use the unadjusted effect size whenever we run a benefit-cost analysis.

Research shows the magnitude of effects may change over time. For those effect sizes, we estimate outcome-based adjustments, which we apply between the first time ES is estimated and the second time ES is estimated. More details about these adjustments can be found in our Technical Documentation.

Meta-Analysis of Program Effects
Outcomes measured No. of effect sizes Treatment N Effect sizes (ES) and standard errors (SE) Unadjusted effect size (random effects model)
ES SE Age ES p-value
Smoking before end of high school
Any smoking of tobacco by the end of high school, typically between ages 14 and 18.
 12 1 1174 -0.143 0.120 15 -0.143 0.235

Citations Used in the Meta-Analysis

Elder, J.P., Wildey, M., de Moor, C., Sallis, J.F., Eckhardt, L., Edwards, C, . . . Woodruff, S.I. (1993). The long-term prevention of tobacco use among junior high school students: Classroom and telephone interventions. American Journal of Public Health, 83(9), 1239-1244.