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DOI: 10.1176/appi.books.9781585623440.359197
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Chapter 48. Prevention of Substance Abuse
PREVENTION OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE: INTRODUCTION
Prevention is usually thought of as relevant primarily for children and youths, not adults. For every
drug, several potential targets exist in trajectories of drug use for prevention activities. These
include 1) initiation; 2) continuation; 3) progression within a drug class to more extensive,
intensive use patterns; 4) progression across drug classes; 5) progression to dependence; 6)
regression to cessation; and 7) lapse and relapse. The preponderance of research on substance
abuse prevention to date has focused on two targets: 1) attempts to reduce the likelihood of
initiation (or at least delay onset) and prevalence of use among youths and 2) reducing the
likelihood of relapse among adult drug abusers. In this chapter, we concentrate on primarily
youth-focused prevention.
The strategies that have been used to attempt to reduce the likelihood of initiation or delay onset
are based on at least two assumptions: 1) catch youths before they start using drugs and 2) find
youths where they are, and deliver prevention to them. The best place to find youths is in school or
in front of a television set, where they spend a disproportionate amount of time. Therefore, a great
deal of what we know about prevention (its efficacy and effectiveness) comes from school-based,
curriculum-driven programming and from media-based prevention initiatives. Some efforts have
been made to deliver substance abuse prevention to families, workplaces, and communities, but
these efforts have been minimal in comparison to school and the media as vectors for prevention.
Because of the disproportionate focus on youths and initiation among youths, a significant amount
of attention has been devoted to the so-called gateway drugs: tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. One
aspect of the concept of gateway is the time order, or sequence of occurrence, of initiation. It is
therefore interesting that most efforts to prevent use of gateway drugs do not involve use of
inhalants, steroids, or nonmedical use of prescription medications that are often prescribed for
youths (e.g., medications for treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]). Use of
inhalants and ADHD medications often precede use of some or all of the three gateway drugs that
get the most attention. Some drug-specific prevention initiatives have been developed for inhalants
and steroids, but these are usually stand-alone efforts largely independent of prevention efforts
targeting the gateway drugs. Almost no prevention efforts have specifically targeted use of
cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD),
methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; “ecstasy”), and prescription drugs in general. Use of
multiple drugs is seldom the focus of substance abuse prevention activities, even though multiple
drug use is the norm rather than the exception.
From an etiological perspective, the dominant approach to substance abuse prevention has been to
identify the predominant risk and protective factors for substance abuse (Clayton 1992; Hawkins et
- 1992). These risk and protective factors are usually grouped into several domains: genetic,
biological, social, psychological, contextual, economic, and cultural. The first two of these domains
are clearly specific for individuals rather than population groups and cannot be changed. This is
important because the essence of prevention is attempting to modify changeable and malleable risk
and protective factors. If a factor is not amenable to change, then it is not a legitimate target of
preventive intervention efforts. Thus, most substance abuse prevention initiatives are focused
primarily on changing the social, psychological, contextual, economic, and cultural risk and
protective factors that are predictive of drug use.
TAXONOMIES OF PREVENTION
There are three broad-based taxonomies of prevention. The first taxonomy and one that is mostPrint: Chapter 48. Prevention of Substance Abuse http://www.psychiatryonline.com/popup.aspx?aID=359201&print=yes…
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familiar to clinicians is the traditional medical and public health model. Primary prevention is
preemptive in nature and involves reduced incidence of a disorder (i.e., occurrence of new cases).
Secondary prevention is focused on reducing prevalence (i.e., the total number of new and old
cases). Tertiary prevention is focused on reducing the sequelae and complications arising from the
problem or disorder once it is manifest.
The second taxonomy is the one most widely used in the substance abuse prevention arena:
A universal preventive measure is desirable for everybody in the eligible population. A selective
preventive measure is desirable only when the individual is a member of a subgroup of the population
whose risk of becoming ill is above average. An indicated preventive measure applies to persons who, on
examination, are found to manifest a risk factor, condition, or abnormality that identifies them,
individually, as being at high risk for the future development of a disease. (Mrazek and Haggerty 1994,
- 20–21)
The third taxonomy of prevention is less widely used but clearly anchored in population-based
public health. It involves downstream interventions, in which the focus is on the individual and his
or her lifestyle or behavior; midstream interventions, in which the focus is on the community and
institutions within communities; and upstream interventions, in which policies that support
prevention are made (McKinlay and Marceau 2000).
The field of substance abuse prevention has, for the most part, adopted the universal, selective,
and indicated constructs to guide its work.
SCHOOL-BASED, CURRICULUM-DRIVEN PREVENTION
The scientific roadmap (see Flay et al. 2005) for school-based, curriculum-driven prevention
involves clinical trials testing for efficacy (the beneficial effects of a program or policy under
optimal conditions of delivery), effectiveness (effects of a program or policy under more real-world
conditions), and dissemination (taking a program to scale with widespread reach and penetration).
In this section, we review selected efficacy and effectiveness trials. Clinicians should note that
research on the prevention of substance abuse is subject to the same scientific process and
principles applicable to evaluation of treatment protocols.
We have found an extensive literature on randomized trials of the efficacy of “social influences” or
“social competency” school-based curricula that usually attempt to change the following types of
mediators: 1) normative beliefs among adolescents, 2) perceptions of consequences of substance
use or abuse for adolescents, and 3) social problem-solving skills (e.g., communication skills,
decision-making skills, resistance and assertiveness skills).
Life Skills Training
Perhaps the most widely cited study of a school-based prevention program with efficacy is Life
Skills Training. This social influences and competency program involves 15 sessions during the
sixth grade, 10 booster sessions in the seventh grade, and 5 booster sessions in the eighth grade.
Botvin et al. (1995) randomly assigned 56 schools to a control condition or two experimental
conditions. The first experimental condition involved teachers personally trained by Botvin and his
colleagues who also received technical assistance as needed. In the second condition, teachers
received training from Botvin and his colleagues via videotape but no technical assistance. Botvin
also divided his sample into those students who were exposed to 60% or more of the lessons
(labeled by Botvin as “high fidelity”) and those who received fewer than 60% of the lessons (“low
fidelity”). The emphasis was on gateway drugs (i.e., tobacco, alcohol, marijuana), and youths were
followed up on for 6 years. No statistically significant differences were found between teachers
who were personally trained and those who received training via videotape. Statistically significant
effects on drug use were noted when the control condition was compared with the two
experimental conditions “for students in the high-fidelity condition.” However, note that between 1
in 4 and 1 in 3 students were classified as low fidelity. These low-fidelity students were probably
more likely to be high-risk youths. Separate analyses by these authors determined that noPrint: Chapter 48. Prevention of Substance Abuse http://www.psychiatryonline.com/popup.aspx?aID=359201&print=yes…
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statistically significant effects were seen between low-fidelity students and the students in the
control condition. Simply put, Life Skills Training seems to work for those with good attendance
(present for 60% or more of the lessons), not for those with higher absenteeism.
Hutchinson Smoking Prevention Program
Whereas the Life Skills Training study focused on prevention of use of a few gateway drugs, the
Hutchinson Smoking Prevention Program (HSPP) focused only on smoking. The study was
conducted in 40 school districts, 20 of which received the intervention, and 20 of which served as
the control districts (Peterson et al. 2000). The 40 districts were selected at least partially because
they contained only one high school, so experimental and control participants would never be
mixed. The theory-driven social influences intervention began in the third grade and continued
through the tenth grade, with content developmentally tailored to grade level. The total number of
potential prevention exposure units was 46.75 hours. Implementation fidelity was high, with 80%
of the teachers effectively communicating the key concepts of the lessons. None of the control
districts violated their commitment to remain free of interventions during the 15-year trial. Overall,
the HSPP study retained 93% of the participants at 2 years beyond high school. To lose only 7% of
the sample over this period of time is impressive.
The principal results examined daily smoking among males and females in the twelfth grade. The
results were disappointing. Less than 1 percentage point difference was found between
experimental and control students (males and females were examined separately) in daily smoking
in the twelfth grade. HSPP and the Life Skills Training interventions were driven by a social
influences framework, there were considerably more exposure units in the HSPP than in Life Skills
Training, the focus was on one instead of a few drugs, and the design in the HSPP was rigorous
(Clayton et al. 2000).
Project ALERT
Project ALERT, a universal prevention program, now involves 11 lessons in the seventh grade and 3
booster sessions in the eighth grade, but its initial version included 8 lessons in the seventh grade
and 3 lessons in the eighth grade. The first evaluation occurred between 1984 and 1986 in 30
schools: the lessons were taught by adult health educators in 10 schools, the curriculum was
delivered by adult teachers assisted by teenage peer leaders in 10 schools, and 10 schools served
as controls. The results were promising—those who received the intervention were 30%–50% less
likely to start using or to be currently using marijuana. Among students who were experimenting
with cigarettes at the beginning of the seventh grade, those in the intervention group were
33%–55% less likely to become regular or current smokers. Only modest reductions were found for
alcohol use. There were no significant differences by who delivered the intervention (see Ellickson
and Bell 1990). These youths were followed up on through the ninth, tenth, and twelfth grades (see
Ellickson et al. 1993). As has been true for many such prevention efforts, the significantly different
effects observed earlier had decayed by the last follow-up.
Project ALERT is particularly interesting because the early research was used to change some
aspects of the curriculum (new sessions on inhalants, smoking cessation, and alcohol as well as
home learning activities to get parents involved), new research was conducted to test efficacy and
effectiveness (Ellickson et al. 2003; Ghosh-Dastidar et al. 2004), and an independent evaluation
was conducted (St. Pierre et al. 2005). In the large randomized trial, Ellickson et al. (2003) found
effects for the revised curriculum on initiation of cigarette and marijuana use, current and regular
cigarette use, and alcohol misuse. The reported reductions ranged from 19% to 39%. Effects were
not observed for initial and current drinking or for current and regular marijuana use.
Ghosh-Dastidar et al. (2004) found a moderate effect on targeted risk factor mediators associated
with cigarette and marijuana use and more modest gains with the pro-alcohol risk factors.
St. Pierre et al. (2005) conducted an effectiveness trial that involved agricultural extension agents
to deliver the curriculum. They found no positive effects on substance use or the mediators and risk
factors addressed by the curriculum. In addition, they engaged in a substantial effort to explainPrint: Chapter 48. Prevention of Substance Abuse http://www.psychiatryonline.com/popup.aspx?aID=359201&print=yes…
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why no effects were found and were not able to offer a feasible and defensible explanation for the
differences in their evaluation and those conducted by the individuals who developed and tested
the curriculum for efficacy and early effectiveness.
From our selective review of the vast scientific literature on substance abuse prevention
programming that is school-based and curriculum-driven, several points emerge:
Efficacy designs often do not resemble reality (Hallfors et al. 2006). Most efficacy trials collect baseline
data, and some get the intervention and others do not. A follow-up usually occurs 1 year or more after
the intervention. Drawing a line from baseline to follow-up for experimental and control participants
and asserting that the difference between the lines exists because of exposure to a school-based,
curriculum-driven intervention is audacious and ignores the thousands of experiences individuals have
in the interim that could influence scores at follow-up.
Influences on substance abuse exist at multiple levels. The curricula used in social influences and
competency interventions assume that the most critical predictors of drug use lie “inside” the individual
in his or her ability to make good decisions and use resistance skills. These approaches largely ignore
the fact that every child receiving a prevention lesson has a family, regardless of what that consists of;
lives in a neighborhood and a community; and may be embedded in a variety of peer and social
organizational groups (e.g., boy and girl scouts, soccer teams). These “outside the individual”
environmental influences may have an equal or even stronger effect on substance abuse than do
intraindividual factors.
Substantial differences exist across schools and across classes and cohorts within schools. This
heterogeneity is often missed or ignored in evaluation research. Some schools are at “higher” risk for
having greater incidence and prevalence of drug use than are other schools. Classification of entire
schools according to risk has been largely ignored (Cameron et al. 1999).
Almost all prevention programming has focused on substance abuse patterns as the targeted
outcomes. Considerably less attention has been paid to the outcomes of most importance to school
administrators and teachers: academic performance indicators such as grades, achievement test
scores, and attendance, retention, and school order or disorder.
Teachers delivering the curriculum in a school are critical. Little research has been done on the
differential effectiveness of teachers to deliver these curricula, and almost no attention has been paid
to the conglomeration of ineffective teachers in chaotic schools with students from high-risk familial
and neighborhood environments.
Even with these caveats, prevention science shows that school-based, curriculum-driven prevention
programming has produced statistically significant effects under controlled conditions. Societal,
community, and parental concerns about drug use among children have led to widespread
dissemination in schools of prevention programming that has passed muster on efficacy criteria
(albeit usually not via independent evaluation). In other words, evidence indicates that prevention
in schools works, but the most appropriate questions may be
Whom does prevention work for?
Where does prevention work?
When does prevention work?
Why does prevention work?
How does prevention work?
MEDIA-BASED PREVENTION
A substantial amount of research has been conducted on media as a vector for prevention of
substance abuse. In this section, we selectively review some of the more prominent efforts. When
mass media mechanisms, particularly public service announcements (PSAs), are used as a strategy
to help prevent substance abuse, the goal is to have viewers be aware of the media message,
encode it, decode it, be able to recall the message and where one encountered it, and then apply
the essence of the message to decisions about drug abuse.
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Recall is, of course, one of the most important measures of effectiveness. When this one criterion is
used, the “This is your brain; this is your brain on drugs” PSA created by the Partnership for a
Drug-Free America scores very high. However, the ultimate goal of media campaigns is to raise
awareness and draw attention to an issue and change knowledge, attitudes, and behavior about
that issue or phenomenon. Although the “This is your brain on drugs” campaign is widely
remembered, the actual effects of the campaign were not evaluated.
American Legacy Truth Campaign
The “Truth” tobacco countermarketing campaign has been extensively and rigorously evaluated. It
was initially delivered in Florida with significant positive effects (Niederdeppe et al. 2004; Sly et al.
2001) and later used as part of a national campaign directed by the American Legacy Foundation.
Farrelly et al. (2005) found a dose-response relation between exposure to the Truth antismoking
advertisements and the prevalence of smoking among youths. In fact, they estimated that the
campaign accounted for about 22% of the 18%–25.3% decline in smoking prevalence that
occurred nationally among youths between 1999 and 2002 (Thrasher et al. 2004). Wakefield et al.
(2006) used the Monitoring the Future surveys to examine the effect of the tobacco
industry–sponsored smoking prevention advertising. They found no beneficial effects and the
possibility of some harmful effects on youths in grades 10 and 12.
Office of National Drug Control Policy’s National Youth Antidrug Media
Campaign
The Office of National Drug Control Policy’s National Youth Antidrug media campaign has three
goals: 1) educate and enable America’s youths to reject illegal drugs; 2) prevent youths from
initiating use of drugs, especially marijuana and inhalants; and 3) convince occasional users of
these and other drugs to stop using drugs.
Research evaluating the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s antidrug campaign covering the
period 1999 through June 2004 (Orwin et al. 2006) found that more than 7 of 10 parents and
youths reported exposure to one or more of the media messages weekly. The recall of the
advertisements increased substantially over the years of the campaign. Brand recognition of the
campaign’s theme was high. The campaign had favorable effects on 3 of 4 parent beliefs and
behavior outcome measures (i.e., talking with children about drugs, doing fun activities, beliefs
about monitoring). However, no evidence of effects on parental monitoring behavior was found
until the last data collection of the campaign. Parental monitoring is considered a major protective
factor for prevention of adolescent drug use. Furthermore, no evidence indicated effects on
marijuana, the early interventions, or the campaign as a whole. However, unfavorable effects did
occur. Higher exposure led to weaker antidrug norms, and there may have been a significant
unfavorable effect of exposure to the marijuana initiative on when use of marijuana began.
Health communications researchers at the University of Kentucky have been conducting efficacy
trials on a different approach to constructing PSAs. The traditional approach to targeting or
segmenting audiences for any kind of message, including antidrug messages, is by demographics
(age, gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, special interests). Some communications
researchers have used so-called psychographic characteristics (in particular, sensation seeking) to
target or segment audiences for antidrug messages. The assumption is that those high in sensation
seeking will pay attention only to messages high in sensation value and will be especially attracted
to messages embedded in high-sensation value programming. Palmgreen et al. (2001) evaluated
three televised antimarijuana campaigns in two matched communities over several months and
found a reversal in the upward developmental trend in 30-day marijuana use among high-sensation
seekers. Low-sensation seekers had low levels of marijuana use, and no campaign effects were
noted for them.
Use of various forms of mass media illustrates the universal, primary, and upstream types of
prevention programming. Some campaigns have been clearly efficacious and effective but others
less so, as described earlier. Substance abuse is a complex phenomenon. Major differences arePrint: Chapter 48. Prevention of Substance Abuse http://www.psychiatryonline.com/popup.aspx?aID=359201&print=yes…
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seen between substances and the etiological factors that account for abuse of the various
substances. Capturing the essence of a message that is persuasive and compelling in 30-second
PSAs is extremely difficult. Confirming that these short bursts of prevention programming have
measurable effects on patterns of substance abuse (e.g., initiation, continuation, progression) is a
formidable task. The success rates with tobacco use in the Truth campaign and in the community
trial that used sensation seeking as a targeting variable are evidence of the value of media-based
prevention and the need for further work on media-based prevention programming.
COMMUNITY-BASED COALITIONS
A huge effort has been expended to prevent substance abuse where the proverbial “rubber meets
the road”—in communities—primarily through the vehicle of community antidrug coalitions and
community mobilization. One of the first broad-based community coalition efforts involved the
so-called Fighting Back initiative in communities. Fourteen middle-sized (population between
100,000 and 250,000) communities participated. Community leaders chose, developed, and
implemented prevention strategies that included, at a minimum, public awareness, prevention
targeted specifically at youths, early identification and intervention, treatment and relapse
prevention, and, later in the program, environmental strategies. The Fighting Back initiative was
essentially about community empowerment and mobilization.
Hallfors et al. (2002) conducted a rigorous evaluation of the effects of 12 of the Fighting Back
community efforts. The results are counterintuitive but instructive:
Strategies aimed at either youth or community prevention outcomes showed no effects, while strategies
to improve adult-focused outcomes showed significant negative effects over time, compared to matched
controls. Coalitions with a more comprehensive array of strategies did not show any superior benefits,
and increasing the number of high-dose strategies showed a significant negative effect on overall
outcomes. (Hallfors et al. 2002, p. 237)
These findings are disappointing because the assumption of community-organized,
community-driven, and community-focused prevention is intuitive and because large amounts of
funding were invested in the Fighting Back initiative. Before the evidence of efficacy was available,
the federal government invested an even larger amount of funding toward antidrug community
coalitions in a much larger number of communities (i.e., effectiveness before evidence of efficacy).
Although the evidence from the initiative described earlier is not compelling, evidence does show
that community coalitions focused on high-risk drinking and alcohol-related injuries have been
effective. Holder et al. (2000) combined several mutually reinforcing strategies (i.e., media
attention to alcohol problems, changes in alcohol serving practices in local bars and restaurants,
reductions in retail sale of alcohol to young people, increased enforcement of drinking and driving
laws, and reductions in the concentration of alcohol retail outlets) to produce significant reductions
in high-risk alcohol behaviors and consequences. Most of the strategies described by Holder and his
colleagues are environmentally and policy oriented rather than attempts to change risk factors
“under the skin.”
Substance abuse is a complex bundle of issues necessarily embedded in communities that are
themselves extremely complex. Given the heterogeneity within and across communities, it is not
surprising that marshalling “research” evidence of the efficacy and effectiveness of community
coalitions to prevent substance abuse would be difficult. From a more clinical perspective, the
efficacy of specific community coalitions may require a “perfect storm” mixture of 1) a problem
that is particularly salient at the time, 2) leadership with the persuasive skills and charisma to
focus the community on the malleable aspects of the problem, 3) a willingness of the existing
organizations and coalitions to put this problem above the problem to which they are devoted, 4)
the readiness of the community at large to tackle this problem, and 5) a willingness to change
leadership in different phases of response to the problem. Some leaders are great at galvanizing
energy around an issue but not good at maintaining and sustaining that energy.
CONCLUSIONPrint: Chapter 48. Prevention of Substance Abuse http://www.psychiatryonline.com/popup.aspx?aID=359201&print=yes…
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Prevention is often offered as the answer to just about everything. Prevention covers the breadth
of public health activity from head lice and dog bites to substance abuse and bioterrorism.
Prevention is relevant across the developmental age range from prenatal through infancy;
childhood; adolescence; young, mid, and older adulthood; to death. Unfortunately, the construct is
used so widely in every arena of public discourse that its essential elements and the evidence base
for preventive interventions are often not clear and sometimes not known. Prevention can take
place at many levels—from the individual to interpersonal to local to state, national, and
international levels. Prevention and treatment are often thought of as ends of a continuum. An
alternative approach is to see treatment as another kind of prevention.
Prevention is often focused on attempting to change specific behavioral patterns but requires that
we start with the consequences of behavior to understand better what must be prevented. For
example, supply reduction efforts (usually law enforcement activities) can be seen as primary
prevention for the consequences of drug abuse (crime, burden on the treatment system, premature
mortality, and excessive morbidity associated with substance abuse). Prevention requires an
understanding of health disparities to determine which strategies will provide the most reach and
penetration to populations most at risk. Efficacious and effective prevention strategies and
programs are necessarily designed to influence known malleable risk and protective factors that, if
changed, may lead to a reduction in the consequences of substance abuse. Prevention is often
thought of as the bailiwick of health behavior specialists, but it cannot succeed without a
comprehensive and integrated understanding of a variety of disciplines that contribute to our
knowledge of the epidemiology, etiology, and treatment of substance abuse.
KEY POINTS
Prevention science is still a relatively new area of scientific investigation. Even so, tremendous progress has
been made in conducting rigorous research on efficacy and effectiveness, and research on dissemination has
ramped up in recent years.
Prevention requires a focus on malleable risk and protective factors that exist at numerous levels. If
something cannot be changed, it is not a legitimate target of prevention. To date, more attention has been
paid to intraindividual factors that may be malleable than to environmental factors that could be changed
and, if changed, could affect many individuals.
Prevention has focused largely on children and youths rather than adults; on initiation of drug use rather
than other transition points (continuation, progression within and across drug classes, regression to
cessation, and relapse); and on school-based prevention that is curriculum-driven, televised media messages,
and the formation and sustenance of community-based coalitions. Little has been done to make prevention
more comprehensive and integrated and to parse out the effects of various prevention strategies considered
together rather than independently.
Substance abuse is complex. Large individual differences in substance abuse patterns exist, but the biggest
return on investment in prevention will focus on covering large segments of the population and accepting a
relatively small percentage change rather than having a large effect on a small number of individuals.
Prevention as it currently exists does not lend itself well to individual tailoring.
Accumulating evidence indicates that school-based, curriculum-driven prevention programming can be
efficacious, but a host of substantive and research issues remain to be solved.
Evidence indicates that media-based prevention strategies can be efficacious, but the knowledge base is
suggesting that there are many issues and problems that need to be examined rigorously.
Evidence suggests that community coalitions can have an efficacious effect on substance abuse at the
community level, but significantly more work is needed to have an algorithm that seems to work across
communities.
Documentation that a prevention effort is efficacious in a controlled setting does not in any way guarantee
that it will be effective when disseminated. Studies of effectiveness and dissemination are needed to show
compellingly how to take a prevention program to scale.Print: Chapter 48. Prevention of Substance Abuse http://www.psychiatryonline.com/popup.aspx?aID=359201&print=yes…
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Those involved in substance abuse prevention are often hard on themselves for not reporting large effects
from interventions. A lesson may be learned from the prevention of cardiovascular disease. As many as 20%
of the people who receive prescriptions do not even get them filled, and about 50% of the people taking
routine medicines take them inconsistently (Miller 1997). After a major national push on hypertension, fewer
than 60% of those receiving treatment had the condition “controlled” (Hajjar and Kotchen 2003).
The question that has driven the substance abuse prevention field to date is “Does prevention work?” In the
coming decades, the question driving the field will be “Prevention works, but for whom, when, where, under
what circumstances, why, and how?”
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smoking: the Florida “truth” campaign. Am J Public Health 91:233–238, 2001 [PubMed]
St. Pierre TL, Osgood DW, Mincemoyer CC, et al: Results of an independent evaluation of project ALERT
delivered in schools by cooperative extension. Prev Sci 6:305–317, 2005
Thrasher JF, Niederdeppe J, Farrelly MC, et al: The impact of anti-tobacco industry prevention messages in
tobacco producing regions: evidence from the US truth campaign. Tob Control 13:283–288, 2004 [PubMed]
Wakefield M, Terry-McElrath Y, Emery S, et al: Effect of televised, tobacco company-funded smoking
prevention advertising on youth smoking-related beliefs, intentions, and behavior. Am J Public Health
96:2154–2160, 2006 [PubMed]
SUGGESTED READING
Botvin GJ, Baker E, Dusenbury L, et al: Long-term follow-up results of a randomized drug abuse prevention
trial in a white middle-class population. JAMA 273:1106–1112, 1995
Farley T, Cohen DA: Prescription for a Healthy Nation: A New Approach to Improving Our Lives by Fixing Our
Everyday World. Boston, MA, Beacon Press, 2005
Farrelly MC, Davis KC, Haviland ML, et al: Evidence of a dose-response relationship between “truth”
antismoking ads and youth smoking prevalence. Am J Public Health 95:425–431, 2005
Hallfors D, Cho H, Livert D, et al: Fighting back against substance abuse: are community coalitions winning?
Am J Prev Med 23:237–245, 2002
Peterson AV, Kealey KA, Mann SL, et al: Hutchinson Smoking Prevention Project: long-term randomized trial in
school-based tobacco use prevention: results on smoking. J Natl Cancer Inst 92:1979–1991, 2000
Wakefield M, Terry-McElrath Y, Emery S, et al: Effect of televised, tobacco company-funded smoking
prevention advertising on youth smoking-related beliefs, intentions, and behavior. Am J Public Health
96:2154–2160, 2006
Copyright © 2008 American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Course Content
Introduction to Substance Abuse and Its Impact
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Understanding Substance Abuse
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The Societal Impact of Substance Abuse
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Psychological and Physical Effects of Substance Abuse
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Quiz on Substance Abuse Basics
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Factors Contributing to Substance Abuse
Understanding Risk Factors and Protective Measures
Prevention Strategies: Community and Policy Approaches
Implementing Effective Prevention Programs
Evaluating Outcomes and Sustaining Prevention Efforts
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