Premium
The Safer Choices Project: Methodological Issues in School‐Based Health Promotion Intervention Research
Author(s) -
BasenEngquist Karen,
Parcel Guy S.,
Harrist Ronald,
Kirby Douglas,
Coyle Karin,
Banspach Stephen,
Rugg Deborah
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of school health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.851
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1746-1561
pISSN - 0022-4391
DOI - 10.1111/j.1746-1561.1997.tb07176.x
Subject(s) - intervention (counseling) , psychological intervention , randomized controlled trial , health promotion , comparability , medical education , safer , research design , psychology , medicine , unit (ring theory) , program evaluation , nursing , applied psychology , public health , computer science , mathematics education , sociology , political science , social science , surgery , mathematics , computer security , public administration , combinatorics
Randomized trials of school‐based health promotion programs present unique design and analytical issues not widely discussed in the research literature. This article describes the Safer Choices study – a school‐based program for prevention of HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy – to illustrate critical methodological issues involved in large‐scale, schoolbased intervention trials, particularly those evaluating interventions with a school‐wide focus. The issues presented are: 1) comparability of the intervention and control groups even when few units are randomized: 2) factors that affect the decision to use a cohort or cross‐sectional design: and 3) appropriate analysis strategy when the unit of randomization and intervention is at the school level, but observations are at the student level.