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Research & Policy

Preventing drug abuse: What do we know?
Committee on Drug Abuse Prevention Research, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council

This report reviews research on ATOD prevention efforts from the last several decades. Based on hundreds of evaluation studies of prevention programs and curricula targeting youth under age 20, the committee concludes that evaluation components of prevention programs are inadequate, despite large sums of evaluation money spent by federal agencies.

Reviewers weigh theories and methods used for program evaluations, assess the findings and their mass applications, and suggest standards for future evaluations. They note that research on the causes of, and paths to, ATOD use shows a divergence between social, ethnic/linguistic, and income groups. This suggests a need for more research on the role of schools and communities in prevention. They assert that programs in wide use (for example Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), in which police officers teach 5th๑6th graders, and Here' Looking at You, for grades K-12) have not been evaluated adequately; and they call for small-scale studies, rather than large-scale replications, to better study risk factor reduction and behavioral development, emphasizing community initiatives and settings. They conclude that no single drug prevention activity is reliably effective. Multiple strategies, implemented in concert, are necessary.

National Academy Press
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW
Box 285
Washington, DC 20055
(800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313
Fax: (202) 334-2451
(1993, 162 pp.; $32.95 + $4 p/h)





 

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Free To Grow is a national program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with direction and technical assistance provided by the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University.