NCJ Number
177727
Editor(s)
William J. Bukoski Ph.D.,
Richard I. Evans Ph.D.
Date Published
1998
Length
237 pages
Annotation
This monograph contains papers that review the scientific evidence that supports drug abuse prevention programs and policy, discusses methodological and analytic developments in conducting cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness studies of drug abuse prevention, and assesses the implications of these research studies for the development of research-based drug abuse prevention programs.
Abstract
The monograph contains papers presented at a technical review held on July 28-29, 1994. The first paper discusses the cost impact of drug abuse on Federal entitlement spending, followed by four papers that review the scientific literature concerning the efficacy of drug abuse prevention programs implemented in schools and for high-risk youth. Scientific evidence presented in these papers suggests that drug abuse prevention programs that have been tested under rigorous controlled conditions have reduced the prevalence and incidence of adolescent drug abuse. The remaining papers provide a technical discussion of the quality and applicability of cost- evaluation methodologies for the analysis of drug abuse. The final paper discusses the implications of drug-prevention research findings for drug prevention policy. It advises that the challenge for the next generation of prevention research is to define a practical, cost-effective array of promising prevention strategies and to conduct the studies needed to establish what works and what does not. Past studies have shown that the needs of youth are heterogeneous when it comes to addiction prevention. It is clear that high-risk youth are an identifiable and significant challenge for addiction prevention programs. In the 1990s, the challenge for prevention research goes beyond simple efficacy to showing that specific, practical, and affordable interventions produce significantly positive and long-term cost- effective results. Chapter references and tabular data