http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/agn97d00/pdf

proportion of studcnts who use drugs incrcascs gradually bcginning in nriddlc or junior high
schoal, not abruptly at grade twelve or CICCCn . 'lhis SUQgCSTS T118t t11C tUlll about which was
foanally observed in high school seniors in 1991 had its bcgintlings several years earlier .
Prevention
Kcducirtz thc tlczrtatnl Lin' drugs tuust be pait uf a cuttiprchcnsivc natiuual sLnUCLy fur
addressing the nation's drug problems . '!hc goal ot prevention is to delay, deter, or eliminate
the onset of suhslanae use within populations . At the core nl-Prevention programs are,weveral
aeenmplinnc Lh ;u decerve. txmeidersuinn . il iq now widely rer.ngniie.tl thnt prevenlinn prngram .
that are effective have several eunmtnn t'eaturen (Dusenburv and Falcu . 1943) . Primary among
theui is ptugiam liwua . Ptngtmu luwti - the utc .mxa uf tlte piugiaut and whut the lnugaut
attempts Lu chang e - is the most important element of preventive intervention .
The history of prevention suggests that there have been three eras of program develnpment .
The first era can he characterir .ed as being intuiLin-drivien . Intuitive programs predominate in
our schools and communities today . These programs rcl7ect common sense ideas . ideology .
and doing what appears tu he popular or exciting .
The seumd era ctf prosram developement is characlerii .ed by theory-driven pro; rams . These
programz . primarily funded thrnugh research prcijectx sponsored by the National Inxtitute tin
Drug Abuso (NiDA) and the Nationul Institute on Alcohol Abusus and Alcoholivm (NiAAA)
have relied on a comhinatiun of host-discipline theory (i .e . theories in which the program
developer was trained as a student) and intuition (nllen not admitted) to guide program
development . Thus, social psychologists liicused un strategies that reflected the theories of
Ihr.ir di .ciplinn cuch ae Cnr .i :d Ir.nrning Theory (R:mdnra . 14474) nntl Ihe Thenry nfRe;iume,d
Action (Ajzon & 1'ighlicin, 1J78) . Sociologists tbcuscd on Social Control'1'hcory (Hirachi,
19b8), itcscanlrcrs gruuudcd in public lualtlr uscd tlrc Hcalth 13clicf Mutlcl (Rust .7lstuck, ct al,
1S'/ :1) . Prevention pro ;rauuncrs have used assumpttons about cause and clTCct that are uilurctlt
in each of these theoretical perspectives to develop preventive interventions . 'fhc dccadc of the
19RU's witncsscd nutncrnua field trials in which varitius comhinatinna of clcmcntc were
delivered and tong-tcrm follow-up traclanC behavioral cftocts coaiplctcd .
Much ot' what is known about cffcctivc school-bascd cun9cular approaches has been learned
from rescarchcr-nzitiatcd intervention trials .
ltl a recent review, Toblcr and Stratton (in press) have examined four groups of programs :
(a) information programs . (b) affcctivc programs which also included intoiillation cotnponcins,
(c) social influence progratns which also tCndcd to include infortnation, and (d) multiplc
component programs, usually including sontc clcmcnt of all three ofthc previous groups but
Clllphasizitld social influence in coti,jutlct(on with additional effective strategies . '1'obicr and
Stratton (lil press) used means and standard devlatlollS to calculate erfCCt size 4taflshcS for each
of the studica reviewed above . 'lbblcr'a rovicw incrcnscd the number of studics in thc annlysis
arttl cuutluctcd attalyscs on Lwu data scts . '11u: first iucludCd all rcput'tcd studics lur wlnch cLlccl
N
0
= w _
na
+.
10 `0 -
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/agn97d00/pdf