Project Title

“CATCH My Breath” 

Objective

Based on the Community Health Assessment that was completed in 2021, the leading cause of death in Franklin County was heart disease. In Franklin County, 144 people died from heart disease in 2019, which is 13 deaths higher than the second leading cause of death, cancer. The rate of these deaths is comparable to the other Health ENC counties and significantly higher than the rate of heart disease deaths in North Carolina. Approximately 21% of adults in Franklin County are smokers, which is 3% higher than the state average. It was also reported that approximately 25.2% of high school students in Franklin County are using tobacco products and is comparable to the state average of 28.8%.  

Cigarette smokers are 2 to 4 times more likely to get heart disease than nonsmokers. One out of every 5 smoking related deaths is caused by heart disease. According to the CDC, heart disease is the single largest cause of death in the United States, killing more than 800,000 people per year.  

Heart disease is affecting people at younger ages each year. Underlying risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, and smoking are contributing to these alarming numbers.  

“CATCH My Breath” is an evidence-based program used to teach youth about the effects of tobacco use. More than 15,000 schools use this program, and it is proven that 45% fewer kids go on to try e-cigarettes one year after completing "CATCH My Breath".  CATCH health behavior changes have been shown to persist for 3 years post implementation. Our goal is to reduce the prevalence of e-cigarette use in teens that will persist through adulthood.  

What We Will Do

The "CATCH My Breath" program is designed to address e-cigarette use among adolescents and teens in Franklin County. The program is meant to raise awareness of health issues that result from e-cigarette use among 6th and 8th grade students in Franklin County.  

Who Is Involved

Franklin County Health Department 

Franklin County Schools  

When This Takes Place

This program was first implemented into 6th grade at all 4 middle schools in Franklin County in the spring semester 2023. We will continue to deliver this annually to our 6th grade students. In Fall 2023, we also expanded the program to be delivered to 8th grade students in Franklin County schools. The curriculum for 6th and 8th grades is slightly different but both focus on the negative consequences of vaping, identifying positive alternatives to vaping, and making personal goals to not use e-cigarettes. 

How We Will Do It

Health educators from FCHD will be trained to deliver the "CATCH My Breath" program to 6th and 8th grade students enrolled in Franklin County Schools. The program will be implemented over a four-week period each semester.  

Results/Planned Measures of Impact

In the spring of 2023, data was collected through pre- and post-surveys given to students and turned back into us. Through these surveys we were able to see student engagement and overall success of the program. However, during the fall of 2023, we were no longer able to provide pre- and post-surveys to collect program data due to new policies in the school system. While we do not expect numbers to change overnight for tobacco usage in Franklin County, we do expect that through continued efforts of this program that we will continue to see a change in the perception of using e-cigarettes among youth.

Discussion/Next Steps

To date, we have successfully implemented this program into 6th grade for both the spring and fall semesters of 2023. We expanded this program into the 8th grade beginning in Fall 2023 and will continue to offer the program each semester.  

Sources 

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/50th-anniversary/pdfs/fs_smoking_CVD_508.pdf

https://nciom.org/counties/franklin-county/

https://catch.org/program/vaping-prevention/