A novel approach to training educators to conduct school-based adolescent e-cigarette education and prevention: Using the Tobacco Prevention Toolkit

Emerging tobacco products, especially e-cigarettes, present a challenge for educators tasked with providing adolescent tobacco prevention education, as they typically have insufficient time to stay uptodate with the latest information on all tobacco products. To equip educators to implement e-cigarette and other prevention materials, we developed a novel, experiential training of the Tobacco Prevention Toolkit, comprising three components: (1) information session, (2) website navigation demonstration, and (3) hands-on curriculum demonstration allowing educators to present and practice Toolkit lessons. We evaluated this experiential training using a post-training survey, conducted with 486 participants (75% female) from 21 separate trainings. Surveys included demographic questions, training evaluation questions, and 4 open-ended questions administered via Qualtrics. Quantitative data were analyzed for frequencies via R statistical software. Qualitative data were analyzed using grounded theory. Training participants overwhelmingly agreed or strongly agreed that their knowledge of e-cigarettes increased as a result of the training; they were satisfied with the overall training; and they indicated intention to use the Toolkit in the future. Participants favored the enthusiastic presenters, the information about e-cigarettes, the website navigation, and the curriculum demonstration features of the training. Participants requested more time for various components of the training, more in-depth information about e-cigarettes, and more direction for Toolkit implementation. This novel, experiential training increased educator-reported knowledge of tobacco products and was overwhelmingly well-received, suggesting that such training can be important for effective dissemination of other e-cigarette prevention and intervention curricula.