Problem/Objective: Tobacco World is a computer-based interactive program for tobacco prevention and cessation education for middle school students. The CD-ROM is designed to be an adjunct to tobacco education as tobacco prevention and cessation is often overlooked or not covered in standard health education curricula. Tobacco use continues to be a serious problem, but many teachers have not been trained, and do not have resources, to teach about the risks of tobacco use. Tobacco World teaches students information about health risks, cessation, peer influences, and tobacco industry advertising.

Methods: The CD-ROM presents a theme park interface that offers students random access to nine game-like activities, covering both smokeless and smoked tobacco. The program has been well received by both middle school students and teachers.

Results: The program was evaluated in a randomized clinical trial in Oregon and California comprising 56 classrooms in 13 middle schools, and a total of 1343 students. Classrooms were randomized to receive the standard prevention curriculum or the standard curriculum plus the interactive computer-based adjunctive program, Tobacco World. We collected baseline assessment prior to exposure to the prevention curriculum, and follow up assessments were used to assess the effect on dependent measures of attitudes, intentions, and tobacco use behaviors. We will report the full results of our evaluation trial.

Conclusions: We will demonstrate the CD-ROM program and report implications of this adjunctive teaching tool as a way to assist teachers in teaching tobacco prevention concepts and information. The development of the program was supported by the National Cancer Institute.