Prevention of smoking among adolescent girls: health promotion strategies for nurses.

Adolescent girls experience a range of interpersonal pressures that affect their health and development. Their identities are linked to where they live, what they believe, how they learn, and how they view themselves. Efforts to influence the behavior of adolescent girls must address and draw from this full range of experiences. Cigarette smoking is associated with multiple social and personal risks, and the prevalence is rising in this population. School nurses can combine concepts from the Health Beliefs Model and Social Learning Theory to reach out to and teach adolescent girls the risks of smoking and develop health-promoting behaviors.