The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: to design an effective smoking prevention model for rural villages that could be easily implemented elsewhere by the Ministry of Health and Population.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial is being conducted over 12-months, in three intervention villages and three control villages. The intervention villages have received a program of five complementary approaches (pillars) . The first pillar was for primary school children, aiming to hinder initiation of smoking through deglamorizing tobacco and increasing awareness of tobacco health effects. The second pillar was for preparatory and secondary schools and youth clubs, aiming to invert the current negative peer pressure to a positive one, by fostering positive aspects of a peer non-smoker role model. The third pillar was a religious-based intervention in the mosques and churches to raise the issue of smoking as a sinful behavior. The fourth pillar consisted of household visits directed mainly to the non-smokers, encouraging them to reject being exposed to ETS. The final pillar was the primary health care units, where the physicians, nurses, and other health care workers were trained to ask each client about active and passive smoking, to provide advice on quitting, and to give instructions to non-smokers about how to protect themselves from ETS.

Results: Will be discussed