The SPORT (Substance Prevention Optimizing Resiliency Training) Prevention Plus Wellness (PPW) program was evaluated in rural middle schools in Georgia during the 2025-2026 season.
SPORT PPW is a single-session evidence-based intervention designed to prevent alcohol and drug use while promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors, including physical activity, nutrition, sleep and stress management.
A total of 1852 students received the SPORT PPW program provided to them in classroom settings.
Students were provided with an online pretest and posttest survey to evaluate program outcomes.
Most students were male (51%) and were either White (47%) or Black (33%). Most participants were aged 12 (36%), 11 (27%) or 13 (26%) years old.
Survey measures included perceived harmful of specific substance use, behavioral intentions to engage in healthy behaviors, and program reactions.
Substance Use Harmfulness
While many students perceived substance use as harmful before participating in the SPORT PPW lesson, there were increases in the percentage of students who believed that substance use is risky after receiving the program.
Here are the pretest-posttest percentage increases of students who perceived (“a great deal”) that using specific substances often or heavily would harm their health or healthy habits.
· Alcohol: 42%-53%=11% increase
· Smoking cigarettes: 48%-57%=9% increase
· Marijuana: 49%-57%=8% increase
· Vaping e-cigarettes: 47%-57%=10% increase
· Opioids: 45%-55%=10% increase
Behavioral Intentions to Engage in Healthy Behaviors
There were also increases in the percentage of students who were likely to participate in various healthy behaviors in the next 30 days after participating in the SPORT PPW lesson.
Here are the pretest-posttest percentage increases of students who intended (“very likely”) to participate in healthy habits in the next 30 days.
· Regular physical activity: 50%-57%=7% increase
· Eat fruit & vegetables: 42%-49%=7% increase
· Eat healthy breakfasts: 26%-35%=9% increase
· Practice stress control: 35%-52%=17% increase (includes “very likely” & “likely” responses)
· Set health or fitness goals: 76%-81%=5% increase (includes “very likely” & “likely” responses)
SPORT PPW Reactions
Students who participated in the SPORT PPW program responded to two questions regarding how much they liked the lesson and believed it helped improve their health.
Most students both liked the program (95%) and felt it helped improve their health (93%) “a great deal” to “a little.”
Conclusion
This was a real-world evaluation of the SPORT PPW program implemented to a large sample of middle school youth in rural classrooms.
Students who participated in the single-session SPORT PPW intervention increased their perceived harmfulness of using multiple substances, including alcohol, tobacco, e-cigarettes, marijuana and opioids.
Participating students also increased their intentions to engage in regular physical activity, eat fruits and vegetables and healthy breakfasts, practice stress control and set goals to improve their health or fitness.
Lastly, more than 9 in 10 youth receiving SPORT PPW liked the program and said it would improve their health.
These multiple health-related outcomes support previous published evaluations of the SPORT PPW program among adolescents.