NCJ Number
175147
Journal
Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly Volume: 16 Issue: 3 Dated: 1998 Pages: 13-23
Date Published
1998
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Given the clear indications from drug-prevention and early- childhood-education research, there is every reason to develop a large-scale social experiment that introduces intensive drug- prevention interventions into early childhood programs.
Abstract
There is a reasonable empirical consensus that drug prevention has positive effects in school-type settings to impede, delay, and/or decrease the use of drugs. A number of researchers have reported varying degrees of drug prevention success with lower income African-American and Hispanic adolescents, as well as middle-class white adolescents. Outcomes have averaged 30 percent to 50 percent reductions in the use of drugs and/or alcohol, documented after at least 1 year of intervention. In addition, there have been two recent reviews of drug prevention programs over the last two decades that have reported the positive effects of drug prevention interventions. These series of drug prevention programs have demonstrated a technology that seems to "inoculate" a significant number of adolescents from drug use or decrease their existing use of drugs. Further, there is comprehensive data from early childhood research that strongly suggests that drug prevention at an early childhood stage of development could be effective longitudinally. This research base also suggests the need to involve parents in such a prevention program. Childhood educational intervention shows promise in shaping the social behavior of children, their cognitive behavior, family interactions, and children's basic psychological well-being. A review of the national Head Start program suggests that these early childhood sites for disadvantaged children and their families could provide the experimental foundation for a series of pilot studies to test the impact of drug-prevention efforts in early childhood. 41 references