The Handbook of Program Development for Health Behavior Research and Practice guides the reader from program development theory through program activity analysis and selection, immediate impact studies, and intermediate and long-term outcome measurement. The handbook consists of five parts, providing a wealth of information about:

- The history and rationale for engaging in health behavior program development, including a case study that shows how to apply the six-step program development model and ways of surmounting the hurdles to engaging in program development

- The role of theory in program development, the use of assessment studies to fill in gaps in theory regarding what leads to health-related behavior, and many issues and resources relevant to pooling information about prior interventions

- Perceived efficacy (i.e. concept evaluation) methods of activity selection, including verbal and paper-and-pencil methods of selecting potentially useful activities

- Immediate-impact studies of activities and program creation

- Ways to find immediate-outcome measures that predict longer-term outcome measures, and future issues to consider in the arena of health behavior program development.

Each section consists of an overview; one or more commentaries from recognized theorists, researchers, and practitioners in the health field, and case studies that provide guidelines on addressing relevant aspects of program development. These case studies will provide useful information for discussion, research, and application. In all, this handbook provides 20 chapters of detailed and useful information for researchers, academics, public health practitioners, students, policymakers, and those who engage in any aspect of health program development or evaluation.

Even though some school-based tobacco use prevention programs have proven successful, nearly all first use of tobacco occurs before high school graduation. In this volume the authors offer a health researcher's perspective on the history, status, and requirements of school-based tobacco use prevention and cessation research. They outline how to develop a research program and give practical guidelines on how to implement it. Following a brief overview of school-based prevention and cessation programs, they describe the development and implementation of Project Towards No Tobacco Use (TNT), and address major theoretical and methodological issues. The specific issues they address include developing and selecting good programs; developing the curriculum; examining the social influences of etiology; and selecting, assigning, and teaching subjects. Researchers and practitioners in public health, especially those involved in adolescent tobacco programs and health promotion will find this volume particularly interesting.