PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Brian Smith AU - Kristin Carson AU - Kourosh Sayemhiri AU - Fatemeh Sayemhiri AU - Malcolm Brinn TI - Community interventions for preventing smoking in young people: A Cochrane systematic review DP - 2014 Sep 01 TA - European Respiratory Journal PG - P1131 VI - 44 IP - Suppl 58 4099 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P1131.short 4100 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P1131.full SO - Eur Respir J2014 Sep 01; 44 AB - Background: Cigarette smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death in the world. Decisions to smoke are often made within a broad social context and therefore community interventions may be effective in influencing the smoking behaviour of young people.Aim: To determine the effectiveness of multi-component community based interventions in influencing behaviour and preventing smoking in young people.Method: We searched the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction group specialised register, online databases and bibliographies of included studies in November 2013. Randomised controlled trials, controlled clinical trials and time-series studies assessing the effectiveness of multi-component community interventions designed to prevent smoking in young people (> 25 years) were included, with data abstraction by two independent researchers.Results: Twenty-six studies from 4109 citations met the inclusion criteria. One study reported a reduction in short-term (<12 months) smoking prevalence (p<0.001), while ten studies detected significant long-term effects. Two studies reported significantly lower smoking rates in the control population while the remaining thirteen showed no evidence of any effect. Common to the effective campaigns were school-based intervention delivery, parental involvement and intervention duration >12 months.Conclusion: There is some evidence to support the use of community programs to prevent smoking among youth. Rigorous trials evaluating social media for delivering these prevention messages need to be performed.