Jump to full article: Seattle (WA) Post-Intelligencer, 2009-10-12
Author: JOHN STANG SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Intro: A Seattle-based study has found an improved way to trim teen smoking.
That improvement is small, but significant.
A type of phone counseling posted a 4 percentage point higher success rate than a control group to get teens to quit smoking, a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute study concluded.
The results were published Monday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Acknowledging that a 4 percent improvement is small, Arthur Peterson Jr., one of the researchers, said this is the first time that such an experiment to get teens to quit smoking has shown a solid increase in positive results.
The bottom line is that the new approach being tested showed a 21.8 percent success rate in getting high school seniors to quit smoking for six months, compared with a control group's success rate of 17.7 percent.
"This shows there is still a lot to do. ... There is clearly a need to take the next step to see how the smoking intervention can be improved," Peterson said.
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