Short-Term Efficacy of Click City®: Tobacco: Changing Etiological Mechanisms Related to the Onset of Tobacco Use

This paper described the short-term results from an ongoing randomized controlled efficacy study of Click City®: Tobacco, a tobacco prevention program designed for 5th graders, with a booster in sixth grade. Click City®: Tobacco is an innovative school-based prevention program delivered via an intranet, a series of linked computers with a single server.
The components of the program target theoretically based and empirically supported etiological mechanisms predictive of future
willingness and intentions to use tobacco and initiation of tobacco use. Each component was designed to change one or more
etiological mechanisms and was empirically evaluated in the laboratory prior to inclusion in the program. Short-term results
from 47 elementary schools (24 schools who used Click City®: Tobacco, and 23 who continued with their usual curriculum) showed change in intentions and willingness to use tobacco from baseline
to 1-week following the completion of the 5th grade sessions. The results demonstrate the short-term efficacy of this program
and suggest that experimentally evaluating components prior to including them in the program contributed to the efficacy of
the program. The program was most efficacious for students who were most at risk.