Community-based Substance Abuse Prevention Research Articles

Measuring Sense of Community Responsibility in Community-Based Prevention Coalitions: An Item Response Theory Analysis.

Research on sense of community (SOC) has traditionally been approached from a resource perspective. Recently, however, research on the experience of SOC has evolved to include a related but distinct construct of sense of community responsibility (SOC-R), or feelings of accountability for the well-being of a community. This study applied item response theory to examine the psychometric properties of a SOC-R scale used in anevaluation of community-based substance abuse prevention coalitions. Data were collected in 2017 from coalition members (analytic sample=309) in the northeastern United States. Findings indicate that the scale was reliable, unidimensional, and functioned well, particularly at low and moderate levels of the construct. The addition of two items intended to capture higher levels of the construct improved the scale's functioning at higher levels of SOC-R. The adapted SOC-R scale was also shown to have moderately strong relationships with conceptually relevant variables, including SOC, coalition participation, number of roles performed in the coalition, and engagement in community action activities. These findings provide empirical evidence to support the reliability and validity of the SOC-R scale, and have critical implications for our conceptualization of the SOC construct, its measurement, and for the evaluation of community-based prevention interventions.

Assessing Community Coalition Capacity and its Association with Underage Drinking Prevention Effectiveness in the Context of the SPF SIG.

Community coalitions are a prominent organizational structure through which community-based substance abuse prevention efforts are implemented. There is little empirical evidence, however, regarding the association between coalition attributes and success in achieving community-level reductions in substance abuse behaviors. In this study, we assessed the relationship between coalition capacity, based on coalition coordinator responses to 16 survey items, and reductions in underage drinking prevalence rates. The coalitions were funded through the federally sponsored Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF SIG). We first examined whether coalition capacity increased over the life of the projects. Mean capacity scores increased for all 16 capacity items examined (N = 318 coalitions), the majority of which were statistically significant. Analysis of the associations between capacity and reductions in underage drinking was limited to coalitions that targeted underage drinking and provided usable outcome measures based on student survey data for either past 30-day alcohol use (N = 129) or binge drinking (N = 100). Bivariate associations between the capacity items and prevalence reductions for each outcome were consistently positive, although many were not statistically significant. Composite measures of correlated items were then created to represent six different capacity constructs, and included in multivariate models to predict reductions in the targeted outcomes. Constructs that significantly predicted reductions in one or both outcome measures included internal organization and structure, community connections and outreach, and funding from multiple sources. The findings provide support for the expectation that high functioning community coalitions can be effective agents for producing desirable community-level changes in targeted substance abuse behaviors.

Philanthropy in the Faith Community: Mobilizing Faith-Based Organizations for Substance Use Prevention

Keywords: Faith, philanthropy, substance use, prevention, addictionThe Assistance for Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP) Center was created in 2000 by the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati to strengthen grassroots substance abuse prevention through technical assistance and grantmaking. Over the years, the ASAP Center has worked with community partners in the faith community to prevent alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. Reviving the Human Spirit (RTHS) was a collaborative project that provided resources to help congregations provide substance use prevention and recovery support in their communities. The ASAP Center also helped mobilize faith communities that were not involved with RTHS to implement evidencebased prevention programs. The center conducted surveys and interviews to understand the successes and challenges of congregations engaged in community-based substance abuse prevention efforts. This reflective practice article examines lessons learned in the faith community and describes how those lessons will shape the ASAP Center's future. This article will also introduce the Faith-Based Prevention Toolkit, a resource developed by the ASAP Center, the Coalition for a Drug-Free Greater Cincinnati, and collaborators to help members of the faith community implement and sustain substance abuse prevention activities in their congregations.The Health Foundation, an independent 501(c)(4) social welfare organization dedicated to improving community health, awards grants to nonprofit and governmental organizations for programs and activities that improve health in Cincinnati and 20 surrounding counties in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. The Health Foundation provides direct support for addiction treatment and created the ASAP Center to carry out prevention activities within the Health Foundation's Substance Use Disorders focus area.1 The center operates as an intermediary of the foundation, providing capacity building, grants, and technical assistance to community organizations (e.g., senior citizens clubs, community centers, civic and fraternal organizations, congregations, and after-school programs), to promote evidence-based prevention.When the ASAP Center was founded, foundation staff, in consultation with community members and prevention professionals, identified the faith community as one of the center's four areas of concentration: Hispanic/Latino, rural, older adults, and the faith community. The center's founders recognized that congregations play an important role in the lives of many people in the region and that there is potential to engage community members in prevention efforts by leveraging the existing infrastructure of the faith community. In order to meet the needs of a wide variety of faith-based organizations, the center developed a two-pronged approach to work within its faith community area: encouraging shared learning through the RTHS project and providing prevention support directly to congregations and faith-based organizations.Supporting Shared Learning Through RTHSThe ASAP Center formed RTHS in collaboration with regional and national partners, including the Coalition for a Drug-Free Greater Cincinnati, League Ministry Consultants, and the Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program. RTHS created a network of professionals and members of the faith community that provided support for the development of prevention and recovery ministries. This group came together to implement the Faith Partners model for Substance Abuse Team ministries.2 The ASAP Center provided funding, coordination, and support to the RTHS collaborative and its members.Since its founding in 2000, more than 2,000 individuals representing 215 faith-based organizations have participated in RTHS activities, including 38 congregations that started Substance Abuse Team ministries. These included a variety of faiths and denominations, including Church of God, Episcopalian, Baptist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Presbyterian, Seventh day Adventist, and Non-Denominational Christian. …

Employing continuous quality improvement in community-based substance abuse programs.

This article aims to describe continuous quality improvement (CQI) for substance abuse prevention and treatment programs in a community-based organization setting. CQI (e.g., plan-do-study-act cycles (PDSA)) applied in healthcare and industry was adapted for substance abuse prevention and treatment programs in a community setting. The authors assessed the resources needed, acceptability and CQI feasibility for ten programs by evaluating CQI training workshops with program staff and a series of three qualitative interviews over a nine-month implementation period with program participants. The CQI activities, PDSA cycle progress, effort, enthusiasm, benefits and challenges were examined. Results indicated that CQI was feasible and acceptable for community-based substance abuse prevention and treatment programs; however, some notable resource challenges remain. Future studies should examine CQI impact on service quality and intended program outcomes. The study was conducted on a small number of programs. It did not assess CQI impact on service quality and intended program outcomes. Practical implications- This project shows that it is feasible to adapt CQI techniques and processes for community-based programs substance abuse prevention and treatment programs. These techniques may help community-based program managers to improve service quality and achieve program outcomes. This is one of the first studies to adapt traditional CQI techniques for community-based settings delivering substance abuse prevention and treatment programs.

Pathways to Empowerment in Substance Abuse Prevention: Citizen Participation, Sense of Community, and Police Responsiveness in an Urban U.S. Setting

Community-based substance abuse prevention initiatives often rely on the empowerment of community residents. Few studies, however, have examined predictors of empowerment in substance abuse prevention contexts. This study tested a path model that included two environment-related variables (i.e., residents’ awareness of community substance abuse problems and perceived incivilities in their community), two variables representing residents’ perceptions of their community (i.e., sense of community and perceived police responsiveness to drug crime) and citizen participation as predictors of the intrapersonal component of psychological empowerment. The model was found to provide a good fit to the data from a random sample of urban residents (n=283) who participated in an evaluation of a National Institute of Justice community policing initiative in the Southwestern United States. Findings suggest that empowerment-based interventions aimed at preventing substance abuse and its related harmful consequences should incorporate activities that specifically address sense of community and police responsiveness to drug crime. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Substance Abuse Prevention Program for Children and Adolescents in a Community-Based Clinic

This paper describes a community-based substance abuse prevention program utilizing a cognitive-behavioral curriculum to children and adolescents affected by a substance use disorder in a parent or caretaker.

A Conceptual Three-Dimensional Model for Evaluating Community-Based Substance Abuse Prevention Programs

ABSTRACT Evaluators of substance abuse prevention programs are being asked to assess multiple and simultaneous interventions occurring in complex settings. The field of substance abuse prevention currently has no overarching conceptual evaluative framework for evaluating its programs. This paper presents a three-dimensional model for conceptualizing existing prevention programs, defining and measuring effects of prevention programs, and making a connection between those programmatic effects, and the interests of the funder. This paper describes the methodology and its use for promoting the efficiency and effectiveness of substance abuse prevention programs.

Bridging the gap between research and practice in community-based substance abuse prevention

Bridging the gap between research and practice in community-based substance abuse prevention

Methodological challenges in evaluating community partnerships & coalitions: Still crazy after all these years

The federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention has made a huge investment in community-based substance abuse prevention. Over the past decade it has provided funding for nearly four hundred community partnerships and coalitions. This article describes a series of methodological challenges in evaluating such programs and in assessing their key processes and outcomes. Evaluation designs face the challenge of an ever-changing array of interventions and the unavailability of traditional no-treatment control groups for testing the effectiveness of these community-wide interventions. Assessment approaches must contend with the often poor, or at least under-specified, connections between the immediate outcomes of the community interventions and the ultimately desired impact of reduced substance abuse. Reporting strategies must forego researchers' penchants for over-analyzing data in favor of getting the information into the hands of practitioners who can use it. A common theme in the resolution of these issues is the need for evaluation professionals to move away from the traditional objective detachment often ascribed to the evaluation enterprise. In the spirit of this prevention approach itself, evaluators must become partners to prevention professionals, adapting their designs, assessment techniques, and reporting strategies to fit the local context and needs. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Evaluating prevention programs with the Results Mapping evaluation tool: a case study of a youth substance abuse prevention program.

The harmful effects of alcohol and other drug abuse are widespread. Our health care, social service, education and legal systems are strained under the impact of substance abuse, not to mention the economic costs associated with substance abuse. Consequently, effective strategies which prevent substance abuse must be identified and replicated. Yet, user-friendly and cost-effective evaluation tools for community-based substance abuse prevention programs are rare. A recently developed tool that has promise to overcome some of the barriers which exist when evaluating prevention programs is 'Results Mapping'. Results Mapping documents and aims to quantify the contributions of a program to future outcomes of its target population with the intention of making data meaningful at the program and funding agency level. This case study was conducted to assess the feasibility of implementing the Results Mapping evaluation tool for community-based prevention programs. The study assessed qualitatively how well Results Mapping worked for one community-based substance abuse prevention program, as well as how much time and funding it took to implement this new tool. Results suggested that Results Mapping may be a valuable documentation, planning and learning tool, but funding agencies should be cautious about using Results Mapping scores to determine funding allocations.

Think globally, act locally: Assessing the impact of community-based substance abuse prevention

The devolution of national programs to state and local control creates special challenges for evaluators as policy ideas are implemented in a variety of ways in local communities. This paper describes the national evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Fighting Back program, a multi-site demonstration of community-based substance abuse prevention. The evaluation follows the dictum “think globally, act locally” and is designed to provide information to understand communities' response to alcohol and drug problems while simultaneously assessing program outcomes. The use of multiple methods of data collection, including large-scale surveys and social indicators, along with qualitative studies of communities, allows “triangulation” of project findings. The assessment of the project at early implementation suggests that Fighting Back communities have implemented a broad range of strategies to arrest substance use. A baseline has been established against which the impact of the program can be measured as it matures. The present evaluation underscores the essential role of both process and outcome assessment of comprehensive community-based programs and the role of evaluation in helping to design more effective strategies.

Examining the link between provider roles and program development: Findings from a process evaluation of a community-based drug prevention program

This paper presents data from a process/formative evaluation of the Real Alternatives Project (RAP), a community-based substance abuse prevention program for "high-risk" adolescents. The challenge of integrating diverse services for a multi-cultural population required the establishment of an innovative provider role-that of the community case counselor. This paper describes the process of role identity among these case counselors within the context of a developing program. Their role evolved from simple case managers to that of generalists. Serving as case managers, counselors, mentors, role models, and advocates, they met clients' multiple needs. Organizational needs were met through their role in implementing and integrating services and their participation in decision making. The evaluation documented and legitimized this process of role and program evolution. The importance of incorporating process evaluation as an equal partner in program development and implementation is discussed.

Community‐based substance abuse prevention research: rhetoric and reality

AddictionVolume 88, Issue 12 p. 1613-1616 Free Access Community-based substance abuse prevention research: rhetoric and reality Brian Hyndman, Brian Hyndman Social Evaluation and Research Department Addiction Research Foundation, 33 Russell Street 5-T, Toronto, Ontario M5S-251, CanadaSearch for more papers by this authorNorman Giesbrecht, Norman Giesbrecht Social Evaluation and Research Department Addiction Research Foundation, 33 Russell Street 5-T, Toronto, Ontario M5S-251, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author Brian Hyndman, Brian Hyndman Social Evaluation and Research Department Addiction Research Foundation, 33 Russell Street 5-T, Toronto, Ontario M5S-251, CanadaSearch for more papers by this authorNorman Giesbrecht, Norman Giesbrecht Social Evaluation and Research Department Addiction Research Foundation, 33 Russell Street 5-T, Toronto, Ontario M5S-251, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author First published: December 1993 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.1993.tb02035.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume88, Issue12December 1993Pages 1613-1616 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Community-based substance abuse prevention: a multicultural perspective.

Communities represent complex organizational entities which frequently are comprised of varying racial, ethnic, and sociocultural subgroups. This diversity, which is often underestimated and at times overlooked, presents a formidable challenge to substance abuse prevention efforts. The different lifestyles exhibited by various subgroups within a community represent a range of target behaviors that must be addressed if community health promotion initiatives are to be effective. This paper describes the barriers to achieving the goals of community-based substance abuse prevention that can arise from failing to recognize socioculturally-defined subgroups. An intervention planning model, which addresses the barriers from the perspective of a communication-behavior change (CBC) theoretical framework, is presented.