Though experimentation with smoking or alcohol is commonly associated with teenagers, an Evanston community outreach program has been successful in convincing Evanston Township High School students not to give in to the temptations, a District 202 survey shows.

The results of a survey taken this year show an increase in the number of students who said they did not smoke cigarettes or use alcohol, according to project coordinator Sara Christensen. She presented the results to the Board of Education on Monday night.

Compared with last year, there was a 5 percent increase in the number of students who chose not to smoke cigarettes and a 3 percent increase in those who chose not to drink alcohol, Christensen said.

Strength in Numbers is a prevention program that targets ETHS students before they use drugs or alcohol. The program uses a research technique called “social norm marketing” to replace the popular but false perceptions about students’ drinking and smoking habits with data from the surveys. This will convince students to follow a “healthier” norm, Christensen said.

“In the past they always used scare tactics or feel-good messages,” Christensen said. “But now there is a move toward research-based prevention.”

Since the program’s kickoff in 2001, ETHS students have been bombarded with constant reminders of survey results through posters, advertisements at Century Theatres, pens, postcards, water bottles, key chains and even promotional toothbrushes.

Evanston resident Deborah Bell, who has a daughter at ETHS and attended the meeting, praised the program.

“I see the ads every time I come into the building.” she said. “I think it’s great to give kids the image they deserve. The pressure to give in isn’t as much.”

But ETHS junior Mac Durkes said most students are not affected by the advertisements, even though the aggressive campaign replaces posters every month around the school.

“I think it’s just an added thing to the wall,” he said. “If you want to look at it you can.”

Despite some skepticism about the survey’s validity, the survey has several foolproof safeties, Christensen said. For example, the sample group is large enough to invalidate false responses, and the survey is created and evaluated by the Center for Research and Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“I think some of the students will lie in both directions,” Christensen said. “We do our best to ensure that the results will be good data.”

Evanston is only the second community in the state to use this state-funded marketing campaign. After a successful run at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. — where binge-drinking was reduced by 44 percent over 10 years — the DeKalb County Partnership for a Safe and Active Family Environment installed the program at two area high schools in 1998.

According to Dekalb county program’s director, Kris Povlsen, the schools have reduced alcohol and tobacco use by 35 percent in four years.

Projected goals for the program in Evanston include increasing non-use of alcohol and tobacco to 20 percent by 2006.

Christensen said she hopes to continue the program at ETHS as long as funding lasts. Currently, the program is funded by community trusts, the Illinois Department of Public Health and donations from local businesses.

But Allan Alson, superintendent of District 202, said the program “has been a wonderful and enlightening experience.

“By taking a controversial issue that is such an ongoing problem throughout the country and giving it a whole new lens, (the program) has really been very powerful,” he said.