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There is limited research examining community-based youth empowerment that addresses smoking prevention in the rural Indonesian context. This paper describes participatory action research (PAR) applied to develop a framework for empowering youth aged 17–25 years toward smoking prevention. This research conducted in the Indonesian rural community setting was divided into four stages: diagnosing, planning action, taking action and evaluating action.

PAR was chosen as the approach to developing a framework for youth empowerment in smoking prevention programs. In this study, the PAR cycle started with a prestep stage through interviews with village heads, community leaders, youth organization organizers, observations of target resources and observations of participation in youth activities as well as forming teamwork with target participants. The diagnosis stage consists of three activities, that is, focus group discussions with youth groups of male and female, youth assessment of empowerment domains through the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) with the Empowerment Assessment Rating Scale (EARS) and measuring individual and group involvement levels related to the smoking behavior prevention program by questionnaire. The EARS assessment results were presented in the action planning stage, followed by a discussion on youth empowerment plans and strategies. In the action stage, activities and programs are planned according to the planning discussion, that is: training in healthy life skills (outbound and training) and initiating youth health programs without smoking called “Remaja Berdaya Sehat Tanpa Rokok” (Empowered Youth Healthy Without Smoking) or the JayaStar Program. After these community participation activities, the evaluating action stage will assess the empowerment domain in the youth groups, conduct focus group discussions with parents, evaluate the impact of empowerment on individual and group changes with a questionnaire and facilitate self-reflection by the youth community called Madiska.

This protocol describes a doctoral research project on developing a youth empowerment framework in smoking prevention programs through PAR. The intended study will provide valuable information on the planning, implementation and evaluation of youth empowerment in the prevention of smoking behavior.

This research project is expected to contribute to the literature relating to PAR for rural settings and the use of empowerment strategies to prevent youth smoking behavior. The results can be replicated in the same settings, but the process of empowerment must still be adapted to the characteristics and local wisdom of the community.

This paper aimed to review globally the empowerment programs for the prevention and control of smoking behavior among youths, to examine the role of empowerment in health promotion, to explore the stages of health promotion through community empowerment strategies including planning, implementation and evaluation. Finally, this paper will develop a model of youth empowerment to prevent and control smoking behavior that reflects theory and experience drawn from the literature.

This review synthesized articles on community empowerment and health promotion, youth empowerment programs for tobacco prevention and control globally from books and electronic databases from the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) library in the publication period 2000–2020. Relevant literature was selected and critically reviewed which reflected the role empowerment in health promotion, stage of community empowerment strategy as described by Laverack and youth empowerment concept in tobacco control as described by Holden.

Documents that specifically discuss empowerment programs for smoking prevention and control are still limited. The findings document that youth empowerment in tobacco control do not fully integrate the theory empowerment as described by Laverack and Holden. This paper provides information about the stages of youth empowerment, and a conceptual framework of youth empowerment for the prevention and control of smoking behavior. Youth empowerment is done through the direct involvement of youth in programs starting from program design, planning, implementation and evaluation. Indicators of the success of the empowerment process are reflected in the increase in the empowerment domain. Meanwhile, the output of empowerment can be seen from the individual- or group-level changes.

This paper proposes a model of youth empowerment for the prevention and control of smoking behavior among youths based on theory and experience in the field.

This study aims to examine the extent to which anti‐smoking websites use intervention strategies that have been informed by four prominent theories of health‐related behavior change: the health belief model, the theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behavior, the transtheoretical model, and social cognitive theory.

Content analysis was applied to 67 unique and independent anti‐smoking websites to determine their use of 20 intervention strategies based on the four theories.

The findings reveal that anti‐smoking websites used the health belief model the most and social cognitive theory the least. In addition, websites devoted to smoking cessation used these theories more extensively than websites devoted to smoking prevention.

The sample size is somewhat small, which may result in lack of sufficient statistical power. Also, the analysis may have overlooked some important intervention strategies that are particularly effective for smoking intervention programs.

Anti‐smoking website designers should take more advantage of the internet as a health promotion medium and use more intervention strategies that have been informed by scientifically tested theories of behavior change, particularly with respect to affective and behavioral strategies.

This study contributes to current knowledge about which kinds of anti‐smoking messages are available online and how extensively they employ theory‐based intervention strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of independent vs interdependent self-construal in non-smokers’ responses to an anti-smoking message that focuses on either personal or relational consequences of smoking.

Two web-based experimental studies were conducted among US college non-smokers. In the first study, participants’ self-construal was measured. Then participants were randomly assigned to view an anti-smoking message emphasizing either relational or personal consequences of smoking. Message evaluation, smoking attitudes, and behavioral intentions were assessed after message exposure. The second study followed the same procedure except that participants’ self-construal was manipulated by randomly assigning participants to an independent or interdependent self-construal priming task prior to message exposure.

Both studies showed a noticeable pattern of interaction between message focus and self-construal: non-smokers with a salient interdependent self-construal responded more favorably to an anti-smoking message emphasizing personal (vs relational) consequences of smoking whereas non-smokers with a salient independent self-construal responded more favorably to an anti-smoking message emphasizing relational (vs personal) consequences of smoking. However, the interaction effect was small in the first study.

Findings from this study are original in that they run counter to the general belief that messages matching people’s self-perceptions will be more persuasive. On the other hand, matching health risk messages with people’s dominant self-construal may reduce the messages effectiveness due to defensive processing. As a result, communication practitioners should take a great caution of tailoring threatening smoking prevention messages to target audiences’ self-perceptions.

This study aims to examine the different effects that the fear and humor appeals in anti-smoking advertisements for children have on their affective reactions to the advertisements, on their beliefs about smoking and on their behavioral intentions to smoke.

This paper presents the findings of a qualitative research study conducted in Italy with children aged from 8 to 11 years.

The results indicated that the humor appeal is a useful method for conveying a social theme in a pleasant way and creating a likable character that becomes an example for children to imitate; however, it is necessary to employ the fear appeal to make children reflect carefully about the negative consequences of smoking.

This study examined only children's behavioral intentions derived from anti-smoking advertisements, but future research should also examine their real behaviors after a period following repeated viewing of public service announcements about smoking prevention or other social issues.

Understanding how different types of appeals can influence children represents an important result for the prevention of youth smoking and the promotion of healthy lifestyle habits during childhood.

Understanding how different types of appeals can influence children represents an important result for the prevention of youth smoking and the promotion of healthy lifestyle habits during childhood.

Few studies have examined the impact of social advertisements on children, and particularly little is known about the effectiveness of fear appeals on this group.

The reduction of tobacco use among medical students is a potentially powerful strategy to reduce tobacco use among future health professionals, who in turn, can have significant impact on tobacco use among patients as well as the general population in China. The goal of this study is to update information on the prevalence of cigarette smoking among Chinese medical students and to assess modifiable factors for smoking reduction.

Presented in the paper are descriptive, associative and path model analyses of survey data collected among 758 medical students in year one through year three from Hainan Medical College, Hainan, China.

Among the total 758 participants, 66.9 percent of males and 26 percent of females smoked and 26.5 percent of males and 1.6 percent of females had smoked in the past 30 days. The median monthly expenditure on cigarettes was 30 Chinese Yuan (approximately US$4.25). The likelihood of smoking increased with male gender, more advanced year group, poor academic performance, perceived peer smoking, and depressive symptoms, after controlling for covariates.

Findings reported in this study provide further insight into the smoking prevalence among medical students in China as well as adding to knowledge about several potentially modifiable factors that are related to smoking. Data collected in this study are likely to prove valuable in prioritizing tobacco control among Chinese medical students, as they are future medical doctors, and their smoking behaviors will have strong influence on their patients as well as the general public.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether university students' smoking behaviour is associated with higher levels of stress and depression directly, or indirectly, via the mediation of coping, personal beliefs and social support.

The study design involves a cross‐sectional survey. Structural equation modelling was employed to explore the relationships between smoking behaviour, stress and depression via the mediating effects of coping resources, personal beliefs and social support.

The higher the stress and depression levels, the more likely the respondents' were to adopt disengagement coping strategies and to engage in smoking behaviour. Stress was not found to have a significant direct effect on smoking behaviour when depression, active coping abilities and social support were included as mediators in the model. Thus, if stress is high yet coping skills are also high and personal beliefs are anti‐smoking, the likelihood of smoking was low.

Disengagement coping strategies significantly increased the likelihood of smoking when stress heightened depression level. However, stress did not independently increase the chance of smoking when active coping and social support were moderating the effects of depression on smoking behaviour. Personal beliefs also acted as an independent contributor to increase the likelihood of smoking when pro‐smoking beliefs were held by individuals. Overall, this study suggests that personal coping strategies and personal beliefs, with social support, are important protective mechanisms through which stress and depression influence smoking behaviour.

Health promotion programmes to encourage smoking cessation should therefore include measures to encourage young adults to adopt active coping strategies (e.g. exercise, recreational activities) to make interventions effective in reducing smoking rate.

This study identifies important mechanisms that underpin smoking behaviour among university students. The results provide evidence that supports the resilience perspective that personal coping resources, personal beliefs and protective factors, such as social support, are important factors either to lead people to adopt smoking behaviour, or to decrease the likelihood of smoking.

The pharmacological addition syndrome which integrates the complex factors involved in maintenance of smoking as a behaviour, has led to many attempts to find aneffective cessation treatment, either through replacement therapy or through behavioural programmes or a combination of both. Research carried out by the Wessex branch of Operation Smokestop, a project providing training, support and research for community‐based self‐help stop‐smoking groups, reveals that the problem may now be more fruitfully examined through a social and political framework. Such influences may prove to have more bearing on the suggested gender‐based differences in smoking and cessation than that of nicotine alone. Women smoke as a way of dealing with their daily lives. Health and addiction worries result in their greater numbers of attempts to stop smoking. Significant drops in prevalence for women are not found since they are more likely to relapse through their dependence and because girls are taking up smoking at a greater rate than boys. Women are not smoking more to be more like men but because they feel powerless and unable to change their cultural, social and political and economic environments. The results are based on 516 Smoking Patterns test questionnaires which produce a picture of an individual's smoking motivations based on seven factors.

This paper aims to explore the beliefs and attitudes of young mothers in relation to smokefree homes and passive smoke in Guernsey, and to encourage them to contribute to the designing of a smokefree home leaflet and pack aimed at young mothers.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 11 participants (aged 17‐23 years).

Most participants were smokers, however, they all knew what passive smoke was and asserted that their homes were smokefree. Even if they were unable to list specific impacts of second hand smoke on children, they all agreed that children should be protected. A few of them described the difficulties in telling people not to smoke around their children in other people's homes and in cars. Moreover, some young mothers said that they found it hard to persuade their partners not to smoke around the children.

This paper presents the respondents ideas for promoting and supporting smokefree homes for young mothers and informing a smokefree home leaflet and home pack: providing information about passive smoking during parenting sessions, preferably after the baby has been born; giving parents a pack with giveaways linked to smokefree homes; encouraging parents to be assertive to friends and family who try to smoke around children; and getting both partners involved.

Despite substantial declines in cigarette smoking in England since the 1970s, around 20 per cent of the adult population still smokes. In Sweden, 10 per cent of adult males and 12 per cent of adult females smoke cigarettes, while snus use is prevalent among 19 per cent of adult males and 4 per cent of adult females. Traditional cessation‐only approaches may need to be supplemented with broader tobacco harm reduction measures to reduce smoking prevalence further. General practitioners (GPs) are well placed to give patients advice on tobacco harm reduction. This paper seeks to address these issues.

The authors administered an online survey to assess knowledge, perceptions and attitudes to tobacco and nicotine products to 220 GPs (100 in England and 120 in Sweden).

Most GPs (96 [96 per cent] England, 115 [98 per cent] Sweden) addressed smoking cessation with patients as part of their regular practice. Most GPs (87 [87 per cent] England, 102 [85 per cent] Sweden) felt extremely or fairly knowledgeable about the risks associated with cigarettes, but less so about nicotine in tobacco products and pharmaceutical nicotine. When asked to rank various products on a risk continuum, GPs rated cigarettes as riskiest and tobacco cessation and nicotine‐containing products as least risky. However, when asked to rank components of cigarettes based on their health risks, GPs ranked nicotine as the third riskiest (74 [74 per cent] England, 104 [87 per cent] Sweden), after tar and carbon monoxide, but before smoke or tobacco. When asked questions about a hypothetical nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) product that looks like a cigarette and is licensed for harm reduction, GPs perceived that sensory experience and tobacco harm reduction could be benefits to patients, but perceived appeal to children and risk for abuse could be drawbacks.

Most respondent GPs are well informed about the relative risks of nicotine and tobacco, but more research needs to be done to investigate their concerns over the long‐term substitution of cigarettes with alternative nicotine products.