2008 · Study protocol · English
Testing Communities That Care: The Rationale, Design and Behavioral Baseline Equivalence of the Community Youth Development Study
Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., Arthur, M. W., Egan, E., Brown, E. C., Abbott, R. D., & Murray, D. M.
Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., Arthur, M. W., Egan, E., Brown, E. C., Abbott, R. D., & Murray, D. M. (2008). Testing Communities That Care: The Rationale, Design and Behavioral Baseline Equivalence of the Community Youth Development Study. Prevention Science, 9(3), 178–190. doi.org/10.1007/s11121-008-0092-y
Summary
Design and baseline paper of the Community Youth Development Study, the randomised controlled community trial of Communities That Care. It opens from the observation that prevention science has shown adolescent health and behaviour problems to be preventable with high-quality services, yet many communities continue to use strategies without evidence, which has made the dissemination and high-fidelity implementation of effective strategies a central research focus. CTC is presented as a prevention operating system that supplies manuals, tools, training and technical assistance so communities can plan and deliver science-based prevention against substance use, delinquency and related problems. The paper sets out the rationale, aims, intervention and design of the trial and tests the baseline comparability of the 12 intervention and 12 control communities, finding similar pre-intervention levels of adolescent drug use and antisocial behaviour. Strengths and limitations of the design are discussed. Effectively the trial protocol, and the reference for its later outcome papers.