2015 · Study · English

Evaluation of Community-Level Effects of Communities That Care on Adolescent Drug Use and Delinquency Using a Repeated Cross-Sectional Design

Rhew, I. C., Hawkins, J. D., Murray, D. M., Fagan, A. A., Oesterle, S., Abbott, R. D., & Catalano, R. F.

Rhew, I. C., Hawkins, J. D., Murray, D. M., Fagan, A. A., Oesterle, S., Abbott, R. D., & Catalano, R. F. (2015). Evaluation of Community-Level Effects of Communities That Care on Adolescent Drug Use and Delinquency Using a Repeated Cross-Sectional Design. Prevention Science, 17(2), 177–187. doi.org/10.1007/s11121-015-0613-4

Summary

Methodological check in Prevention Science: the CTC trial had shown effects on problem behaviour in a panel followed from grade 5 to 12, and this paper asks whether the same effects appear when the 24 towns are compared through repeated cross-sectional surveys of sixth-, eighth- and tenth-graders at four waves. ANCOVA models estimated CTC-versus-control differences in community prevalence for each grade, adjusting for baseline. No significant reductions in prevalence were found at any grade. In a ‘pseudo-cohort’ of sixth-graders at baseline and tenth-graders four years later, CTC communities showed a significantly slower rise in lifetime smokeless tobacco use but not in other outcomes; exploratory analyses found slower increases in lifetime problem behaviours only in CTC communities with high programme saturation. The authors attribute the divergence from the panel results to reduced power: cohort effects and migration of unexposed youth in and exposed youth out. A caution for European sites planning to show change through repeated school surveys.