Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Oliver, Brittney D.

Committee Member

Evans, Jr., Marion W.

Committee Member

Wang, Chih-Hsuan

Date of Degree

12-14-2018

Original embargo terms

Visible to MSU only for 3 years

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Department

Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion

Abstract

Tobacco use among Mauritian adolescents has increased steadily since 2008. Currently, Mauritius has not implemented any school-based anti-tobacco program and there is no instrument to assess the effectiveness of existing anti-tobacco school policies. Since the first cigarette can rapidly lead to nicotine dependence, targeted interventions must be assessed before established patterns of smoking appear. This study evaluated a tobacco use prevention education instrument to determine the effectiveness of a school-based anti-tobacco program. 26 male students completed a survey before and after receiving anti-tobacco lessons. Smoking initiation age could not predict likelihood of tobacco addiction (r(12)=0.320, p=0.311). However, after receiving the anti-tobacco lessons, participants were less likely to believe that youth who smoke have more friends (p < 0.001) and were more knowledgeable about tobacco’s dangers (t(25)=3.94, p=0.001). This indicated that, with a few changes, the instrument can be used to assess the implementation of a school-based anti-tobacco program in Mauritius.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/18727

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