This month, Rescue SCG began work in Oklahoma for a new young adult tobacco prevention initiative funded by the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET). The project utilizes Rescue SCG’s proprietary Functional Analysis for Cultural Interventions research strategy, known as FACI™, to investigate local young adult subcultures and their relationships to smoking. Learn more about FACI™ here.

The Rescue SCG research team for Oklahoma includes Jeff Jordan, Andrew Ermlick, Valerie Windstrom-Stevé, and Veronica Montoya. They will be investigating local subcultures in Tulsa and Oklahoma City to provide strategic recommendations to TSET.

The investigation will recruit young adults directly from local bars and clubs to participate in specially designed focus groups. Using Rescue SCG-designed research techniques such as Identity-Projection and Subculture Associations, the research team will look for patterns in tobacco use. These findings will then be quantitatively verified using Rescue SCG’s Ibase™ Survey, which will be administered to 1,200 young adults at bars and clubs in each city using a random venue-based sampling method.

If these research findings lead to a young adult Social Branding® intervention to prevent young adult tobacco use, Tulsa and Oklahoma City will become the 7^th and 8^th cities to adopt the rapidly growing strategy, currently active in Portland, ME, Albuquerque, NM, Las Cruces, NM, Las Vegas, NM, San Diego, CA, and Reno, NV. To learn more about Social Branding® for young adult tobacco prevention, click here.

Rescue SCG expects to have research findings available in early April 2010. Stay tuned to this blog for more info.