Initial indicators of effectiveness for a high school drug prevention program

All Stars, Sr. is a comprehensive high school health education supplement designed to prevent high-risk behaviors among adolescents. The program includes topics such as personal health, nutrition, interpersonal relationships, and stress, with a special emphasis on drug prevention. Effective research-based programs that target late onset prevention and early cessation of high-risk behaviors among high school students are not yet widely available. All Stars, Sr. fills this need by providing high schools with a program that promotes positive change in research-based mediating variables. The purpose of this study was to conduct an initial evaluation of All Stars, Sr. to examine program effects on drug use as well as mediating variables related to other high-risk behaviors. Six suburban high schools in North Carolina were randomly assigned to treatment and comparison conditions. Immediate pre- and posttest surveys were used to evaluate program effects. Results indicate that students exposed to All Stars, Sr. became increasingly likely to view drug use, poor nutrition, and stress as not fitting with their desired future lives. Additionally, students who participated in All Stars, Sr. were significantly less likely to have smoked cigarettes, and they demonstrated a trend toward less drunkenness than comparison students