2000 · Study · English
Bridging the gap between science and practice in drug abuse prevention through needs assesment and strategic community planning
Arthur, M.W., Blitz, C.
Arthur, M.W., Blitz, C. (2000). Bridging the gap between science and practice in drug abuse prevention through needs assesment and strategic community planning. Journal of Community Psychology, 28(3), 241–255. doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6629(200005)28:3%3C241::AID-JCOP2%3E3.0.CO;2-X
Summary
Policy essay in the Journal of Community Psychology on why prevention science was not reaching practice. Arthur and Blitz note that despite advances in knowledge about the predictors of substance abuse and about interventions that work, drug use among American adolescents remained high; the US government spent $2.45 billion on drug-abuse prevention services and research in 1999 with little evidence of population-level effects, while drug abuse was estimated to cost society more than $250 billion a year. The paper reviews recent advances in prevention science and the methods available for assessing prevention needs among children and adolescents, and asks how these can inform strategic community planning. Its argument is the CTC logic in a nutshell: community prevention systems should focus science-based interventions on the predictors of drug use that are actually prevalent among local youth, and it discusses how such planning can be supported. A foundational text for the needs-assessment step of CTC.