Getting the cool kids to talk to their peers about the dangers of smoking cut the number of young people who started using cigarettes in one study by nearly 25 percent, researchers said on Friday.
The study published in the journal Lancet took a different approach than most tobacco cessation programmes aimed at youths by asking students to nominate others they viewed as influential or leaders to spread the anti-smoking message.
This peer selection proved more effective than conventional programmes and greatly reduced the number of students likely to start smoking, the researchers said.
“The important thing this shows is that young people can help each other from taking up the addictive habit of smoking,” said Rona Campbell, a health researcher at the University of Bristol who helped lead the study.
