We report on an effectiveness evaluation of the Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES) program. YES applies empowerment theory to an after-school program for middle school students. YES is an active learning curriculum designed to help youth gain confidence in themselves, think critically about their community, and work with adults to create positive…

Sexual risk reduction interventions are often ineffective for women who drink alcohol. The present study examines whether an alcohol-related sexual risk reduction intervention successfully trains women to increase assertive communication behaviors and decrease aggressive communication behaviors. Women demonstrated their communication skills during…

"Phronesis," or practical wisdom developed through experience, is an Aristotelian concept that can shed light on the capacities of patients to make health-related decisions and engage in healthy behaviors. In this article, the authors develop a conceptual framework for understanding the role of "phronesis" in lifestyle change as well as its…

Empowerment theory provides both a value orientation for community-based research and practice, and a conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating interventions. One critical question in empowerment theory involves whether a reciprocal (bidirectional) relationship exists between community participation (CP) and psychological empowerment…

Although a growing number of projects have been implemented using the community-based participatory research method known as photovoice, no known systematic review of the literature on this approach has been conducted to date. This review draws on the peer-reviewed literature on photovoice in public health and related disciplines conducted before…

Although there are an increasing number of youth development programs that aim to empower young people, there is a dearth of psychometrically sound measures that can be used to assess flexible youth-led organizing and participatory research approaches that tackle a wide range of social and community problems. This study developed and tested…

Glycemic index (GI) represents the postprandial glucose response of carbohydrate foods, and glycemic load (GL) represents the quantity and quality of carbohydrate consumed. A diet lower in GI and GL may improve diabetes management. A 9-week intervention regarding GI and GL was evaluated among adults in the age range of 40-70 years who had had type…

This article highlights results from the Right Question Project-Mental Health (RQP-MH), an intervention designed to teach skills in question formulation and to increase patients' participation in decisions about mental health treatment. Of participants in the RQP-MH intervention, 83% were from a Latino background, and 75% of the interviews were…

Community-based participatory research provides communities and researchers with opportunities to develop interventions that are effective as well as acceptable and culturally competent. The present project responds to the voices of the North Carolina American Indian (AI) community and the desire for their youth to recognize tobacco addiction and…

The research reported here tested the factor structure of a measure for sense of community in community organizations, and it evaluated sense of community's potential as an empowering organizational characteristic within an organizational empowerment framework. Randomly selected community organization participants (N = 561) were surveyed as part…

This article presents a conceptual framework that was developed to guide a national evaluation of the American Legacy Foundation's (Legacy) Statewide Youth Movement Against Tobacco Use (SYMATU) program. This program was designed to develop youth-led, youth-directed initiatives within local communities. Two evaluation studies were designed and…

Whereas most evaluations of youth empowerment focus on individual outcomes (i.e., were individual youths empowered?), this article focuses on the program as the unit of analysis and seeks to explain how organizational structures, program design features, and processes lead to organizational empowerment (OE). OE is defined as organizational efforts…

This study examined adult and group influences on youth participation in youth empowerment (YE) Statewide Youth Movement Against Tobacco Use programs. Adults provide individual guidance to youth groups and through existing tobacco control networks affect the social context in which YE programs are implemented. The authors tested hypotheses about…

Through the American Legacy Foundation's Statewide Youth Movement Against Tobacco Use (SYMATU), programs aimed at empowering youths to take action against tobacco use were funded. It is believed that the activities these groups undertake result in changes at the community level. This article examines the relationships between community support of…

This study applied self-efficacy theory to assess empowerment to advocate on behalf of tobacco control policies. The Youth Tobacco Survey with added policy advocacy self-efficacy, attitudes, and outcome expectations scales was given to 9,177 high school students in Texas. Asians showed the lowest prevalence of experimentation and current smoking,…