SS 13.30-15.00 Special sessions

NO-SMOKING CLASS COMPETITION IN FINLAND

The No Smoking Class competition has been organized in Finland for eight grade pupils since the school year 1989-1990 and for seventh graders from 1993. Each school class had to decide together if they want to be a no smoking class for the next half a year from fall to spring. Classes where all the pupils have been able to be non-smokers during the competition participate in a lottery. The main prize to four classes is 10 000 FIM (1500 ecus) and the second prize ten times 1000 FIM (150 ecus) for the class. Each year 20 000 to 57 000 pupils have participated in the competition. The evaluation of the programme was carried out in the school year 1991-1992 and follow-up survey in 1993. For the evaluation 97 classes were randomly selected from participating and nonparticipating classes. In 28 classes all the pupils were able to be non smokers during the competition, 39 dropped out from the competition because there were smokers in the class, and 30 classes were control classes, which did not participate in the competition. Pupils filled in a survey questionnaire three times: before the competition, one month after and one year after the competition. In the eight grade smoking increased 2.3%points in the classes, which participated from the beginning to the end of the competition, 3.9%-points in the classes which dropped out, and 5.1%-points in the control classes (P=0.027). In the ninth grade the onset rate was similar in all groups of classes. Because the increase in smoking was smaller in the classes which participated in the programme in the eight and ninth grade the data is suggests that competition is affecting onset of smoking.

Smoke Free Europe Conference Abstracts - 19 SEP 1996

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