Promoting Health and Drug-Use Prevention at Schools in Socially Vulnerable Areas

Abstract

The article presents the results of a program developed between 2002 and 2009 topromote healthy and sustainable lifestyles and to prevent drug use at primary schoolsin vulnerable communities in two Argentine provinces (Buenos Aires and Santa Fe).

The objective was to study a group of primary school students ages six to 14 so as toidentify changes in what they know about themselves, about health care and aboutsocial skills. This was accomplished though the implementation of a health care anddrug prevention program. The strategy involved comparative case studies on a nonprobabilitysample comprised 634 youngsters. The methodological approach was basedon a longitudinal, descriptive-analytical research design of a quasi-experimentalnature; specifically, community trials.

Among the conclusions, it was found the program tends to bring about a significant improvementin mastery of the areas in question; that is, students knowledge about themselves(53% demonstrated signs of improvement), health care (73%) and life skills (74%).A breakdown by gender shows females derive more benefit with respect to knowledgeabout themselves, while males do better in health care and life skills.