Particularly in high-risk populations, participation in a family-centered parenting intervention can reduce adolescent and early adult smoking, according to results of a randomized controlled trial of the Strong African American Families (SAAF) program published in Pediatrics June 14.
African Americans have the “highest mortality rates for coronary heart disease and stroke,” compared with other racial groups, and the high rate of smoking among young adult African Americans is of concern, wrote Yi-fu Chen, PhD, of National Taipei University, New Taipei City, Taiwan, and his coinvestigators.
In a study of 424 African American adolescents from small towns in nine rural counties of southern Georgia, the 257 who were randomized to SAAF at age 11 years overall displayed significantly lower cotinine scores a
milosluz/istockphoto.com
The SAAF families each attended seven meetings that consisted of both a separate session for the youth and the parent, and a joint session in which they practiced the skills they learned separately. The parents focused on “consistent provision of instrumental and emotional support, along with high levels of monitoring, consistent discipline that is not harsh, predictable family routines, and the establishment of clear norms and expectations for the use of drugs,” while the youth focused on “the importance of having and abiding by household rules, adaptive behaviors to use when encountering racism, and the importance of forming goals for the future and making plans to attain them,” the researchers explained.
These results “may provide a strategy for reducing health vulnerabilities associated with smoking among African American youth who grow up in challenging rural contexts,” the authors wrote.
Read more in Pediatrics (doi: 10.1542/peds.2016-4162).