Teenage Health Teaching Modules

Teenage Health Teaching Modules (THTM) is a comprehensive school health curriculum for grades 6 to 12. THTM has three primary components: 1) health tasks of adolescence, 2) health content areas, and 3) essential health skills and themes. THTM is comprised of a series of modules, each of which consists of a teacher's guide with a detailed framework for conducting classroom activities and handouts designed to be duplicated for student use. Materials are organized by developmentally based health tasks of concern to adolescents, rather than by content area. All modules are intended to develop five skills: self-assessment, communication, decision-making, health advocacy, and healthy self-management.

The goal of this program is to provide adolescents with the knowledge and skills to act in ways that enhance their immediate and long-term health.

THTM produced positive effects on knowledge, attitudes, practices, and some self-reports of behaviors in selected subgroups of students. Junior high/middle school students and senior high school students who were exposed to THTM exhibited more knowledge about health issues in both experimental and naturalistic classrooms. Senior high school students in both experimental and naturalistic settings and junior high/middle school students in naturalistic schools showed desired attitudinal changes. Exposure to THTM also resulted in several important self-reported behavioral changes. For example, students in senior high experimental and naturalistic schools reported a reduction in drug use and cigarette smoking. Self-reported levels of alcohol consumption also were reduced among senior high school students in naturalistic schools.