Juanita High School Participates in Landmark Statewide Teen Smoking-Cessation Trial

Study is the first of its kind to achieve significant increase in prolonged quit rates

With the help of students of the class of 2003 at Juanita High School, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has obtained landmark results from the Hutchinson Study of High School Smoking, the largest randomized trial of teen smoking cessation ever conducted.

The study for the first time demonstrated it is possible to:

• successfully recruit and retain a large number of adolescent smokers from the general population into a smoking intervention study, and
  
• significantly impact rates of six-month continuous quitting through personalized, proactive telephone counseling.

Students in the class of 2003 — both nonsmokers and smokers, and with their parents’ permission — were invited to participate in the study. As juniors, they participated in an in-class baseline survey, and then were followed by mailed survey one year post-high-school graduation to learn about changes over time in their attitudes and practices with regard to smoking and nonsmoking.

The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, involved more than 2,000 teenage smokers from 50 high schools in Washington, including Juanita High School. Half of the schools were randomly assigned to the experimental intervention; teens in these schools were invited during their senior year to take part in confidential, personalized telephone counseling designed to help motivate them to quit.

edited by Bob Yoder
abreviated LWSD press release, 10/09