Prevention specialists from the Potomac Highlands Guild, Inc. provided 7th and 8th grade students in West Virginia with thee of six-lessons from the evidence-informed SPORT 2 Prevention Plus Wellness program.
Key indicators associated with multiple substance use protective wellness habits were assessed, including intentions to engage in healthy behaviors and perceived social norms.
Participating students increased their intentions to engage in each of the targeted wellness behaviors.
Findings indicated that 9% of adolescents increased their intentions to get physical activity most days a week, 15% increased their intentions to get eight hours of sleep most nights, 32% increased their intentions to eat a variety of healthy foods each day, 10% increased their intentions to set health or fitness goals, and 9% increased their intentions to talk to their parents about health or fitness.
Participating youth also increased the perceived number of peers who participate in healthy behaviors, i.e., social norms.
Results showed that 11% of adolescents increased the perceived number of friends that get physical activity most days a week, 9% increased the perceived number of friends that get eight hours of sleep most nights, and 16% increased the perceived number of friends that eat a variety of healthy foods each day.
These findings indicate that adolescents participating in three of six-lessons from the SPORT 2 Prevention Plus Wellness program improved key indicators of health-promoting behaviors that also serve as protective factors for substance use.
All Prevention Plus Wellness programs include built-in evaluation tools, including scannable pre and posttest surveys allowing quick and easy data collection on program outcomes.
We also provide free data analysis for your organization to identify critical information for both promoting and improving your program’s effectiveness over time.
Learn more about free Prevention Plus Wellness program evaluation support: https://preventionpluswellness.com/pages/program-monitoring-fidelity-improvement-support