Characteristics of Youth Tobacco Control Advocates: Florida's SWAT 2000-2010

Audience: Public health practitioners and community partners who engage youth in policy change activities. Key Points: Despite the interest and CDC’s recommendation, an effective model for recruiting and engaging youth in advocacy is not well defined. Florida’s Youth Tobacco Survey (FYTS) data (2000-2010) provided the opportunity to examine the characteristics of youth and trends in participation across changes in program and ecological context. The longitudinal data were aggregated by the three funding phases to control for possible influences from major changes in program and approach. We used Stata (11.0) to do secondary analysis of a sample (4.8% of 325,083) of middle and high school students who self-identified as being active members of Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) and tested for statistically significant differences between school levels and across each of the three phases. Overall, there was a significant decline in youth participation at both school levels but a significant increase in male and ethnic youth. Members in middle school showed significant increase in not being open to smoking and decrease in current smoking. However, members at the high school level showed more participation by high risk youth over time (e.g., significant decrease in not being open to smoking, quit intentions/attempts; increased social influence to smoke). Educational Experience: Presentation will include methods, findings, and implications for public health practice. Benefits: Findings can inform our understanding of the attitudes and beliefs of youth who choose to participate in youth empowerment and policy advocacy for tobacco control.