Does the 'CATCH My Breath' Vaping Prevention Program Prevent High School Students in Ontario, Canada From Starting to Vape?

Summary

Vapes (also called e-cigarettes) have increased in popularity among youth in Canada and the United States. Youth who try vaping are at risk of becoming addicted and continuing to vape. To help combat the rise in vaping, there is an urgent need to identify effective ways to prevent youth from experimenting with vaping. Because of the novelty of vapes, there are few school-based programs targeting vaping. This study will investigate whether a vaping prevention curriculum called 'CATCH My Breath' (CMB) prevents high school students from starting to vape.

The investigators will recruit 28 schools in Ontario, Canada into the intervention group, and students at these schools will be presented with the CMB curriculum by Public Health Unit staff. CMB is an evidence-based program that includes two 60-minute lessons that provide students with information about social norms related to vaping, health risks of vaping, media literacy, and in-class activities to practice refusal skills. Students will complete an online survey before being exposed to the curriculum, 3-months later, and 12-months later. The vaping behaviours of these students will be compared to students in a separate study of youth health (i.e., the COMPASS study) who are not given the curriculum.

Evidence from this study will identify whether students exposed to CMB are less likely to start and continue vaping. If effective, CMB can be easily delivered in high schools across Canada in order to reduce the number of students who vape.

Conditions

• Vaping Behaviors

Interventions

OTHER

CATCH My Breath

CATCH My Breath (CMB) is a school-based vaping prevention curriculum based on best practices from earlier prevention studies that works by fostering social competence and social influence resistance skills. The curriculum design and content targets two key constructs of Social Cognitive Theory: self-efficacy and behavioural capacity (i.e., knowledge and skills). The curriculum provides students with knowledge of why and how to resist vaping. It is delivered through two 60-minute lessons by a trained Public Health Unit presenter. The curriculum lessons provide information about: 1) the physical, mental, and addiction risks associated with vaping, 2) social norms of vaping (e.g., most youth don't vape), 3) media literacy (e.g., how to recognize and decipher marketing of vapes), 4) strategies to resist and avoid vaping, 5)school and provincial policies about vaping. To solidify the content, in-class activities allow students to discuss what they are learning and practice refusal skills.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Waterloo

  collaborator OTHER

• Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• CATCH Global Foundation

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of Ontario Institute of Technology

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Adam Cole, PhD · Ontario Tech University

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

13 Years

Max Age

19 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-10-03

Primary Completion

2028-04-30

Completion

2028-04-30

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations