Problem/Objective: The Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation funds the statewide youth-directed activist movement, stand. stand includes a comprehensive and integrated media campaign and a statewide grassroots movement made up of community-based stand teams. The extent to which at-risk youth were becoming actively involved with the campaign's grassroots component was unknown.

Methods: RTI International conducts an annual, cross-sectional media tracking survey among youth ages 11-17 in order to evaluate campaign awareness, brand identification and reaction to various campaign elements. In addition, the Ohio Tobacco Research and Evaluation Center at Case Western Reserve University directed a study of youth who were actively involved in 65 stand teams. This study replicated measures from the media tracking survey to further evaluate the campaign's effectiveness at reaching at-risk youth.

Results: A sensation seeking construct, measured by a 5-item scale identifying willingness to take risks, is associated with greater likelihood of ever using tobacco. Media tracking data suggests the stand campaign is increasingly popular among high sensation seeking youth. Over the study period, the percentage of high sensation seeking youth who agreed they “should get involved” with stand doubled (8.7% to 15.6%), while the percentage of low sensation seekers who agreed with this item reduced by half (23.3% to 11.8%). Results of the grassroots evaluation provide a baseline for the actual involvement of these youth on community stand teams.

Conclusions: The media tracking and grassroots data are essential for evaluating the stand campaign's effectiveness at involving at-risk youth in counter-marketing efforts.