Home  >  Program Evaluation  >  Overview

Phase II program evaluation

 The primary goals of HYSQ Phase II are to:

• Evaluate a sample of “real world” youth cessation programs, and 
• Identify characteristics of programs that show promise for improving smoking cessation outcomes among enrolled youth.

The Phase II program evaluations comprise a longitudinal assessment of high school-aged youth participating in smoking cessation programs across the United States. To maintain the real-world context of participating programs, protocols were designed to minimize any disruption to the usual delivery of the programs. There were no required changes to the program content, timing, location, or personnel delivering it. All protocols were approved by the University of Illinois at Chicago Institutional Review Board.

Youth participants were surveyed at four points in time: 

1. Baseline: during a pre-program session inserted prior to the first planned treatment session
2. End-of-Program: just after the completion of the last planned treatment session
3. 6-month follow-up: 6 months after the baseline survey administration
4. 12-month follow-up: 12 months after the baseline survey administration

For each follow-up survey (at program end, 6 months, and 12 months), youth participants provided a breath sample for carbon monoxide (CO) analysis to verify self-reported cessation of smoking.

Program leaders kept attendance records for participating youth and were interviewed once after the completion of the last treatment session.

Organizational leaders were interviewed once. In circumstances where a program was offered in the setting of one organization and funded by another, a leader from each organization was interviewed.

Community-level information was collected in two ways:

1. Archival research to obtain the local ordinances relevant to tobacco, and 
2. Telephone interviews of community leaders representing the local health department, school board, and juvenile justice office.