Background: Surveys of community-based programs are difficult to conduct when there is virtually no information about the number or locations of the programs of interest. This article describes the methodology used by the Helping Young Smokers Quit (HYSQ) initiative to identify and profile community-based youth smoking cessation programs in the…

Recommendations for feasible and rigorous evaluation design formulated by a 1991 conference on the evaluation of comprehensive community interventions are summarized and illustrated through the example of a program for drug risk reduction. Implications of a multisite design with matched pairs randomized into intervention and comparison conditions…

High intercommunity variation in adolescent smoking precluded detection of effects of mass media campaigns on initiation of cigarette smoking in a study with a final sample of 1,637 adolescent subjects. Implications for studies using the individual as unit of analysis and the community as unit of randomization are discussed. (SLD)