Program Proposal

I have devised a program proposal aimed at smoking cessation among college freshmen.

The program will consist of 20 one hour sessions that meet 2 times each month for ten months. At the first session participants will be aided in designing their individualized smoking cessation plan. Sessions will include multimedia, guest speakers, story-telling, story-sharing, instruction in cessation strategies, and regular updates and evaluations of their individualized cessation plans.

Participants will randomly paired into two-person teams for the competition aspect; this will facilitate encouragement between team members. Self reports will taken at random intervals during the intervention as well as carbon monoxide level breath tests to determine abstinence. Participants will be made aware that they receive a score at each evaluation and at the second session of every second month a prize will be awarded to the teams within the top three score. A grand prize will be awarded at the final month to the team that ranks in first place. More points will be issued to those with greater success at smoking abstinence. Points will be lost if a self report conflicts with the carbon monoxide test. Points will be gained if the self report agrees with the carbon monoxide test. This will encourage honesty in self reports.

Participants will be randomly assigned to the intervention group or the control group. Controls will be given a two sessions each month with no competitions or prizes. All prizes will be held until the end of the intervention to encourage commitment to entire program.

Afterwards, statistical analyses will be conducted to determine if any statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) exists between experimental and control group post-intervention results.