Current guidelines for school-based substance use prevention suggest that prevention efforts should begin in elementary grades, before students begin using substances. Previous research suggests, however, that the use of evidence-based curricula in these grades may be low. Using a 2005 survey of public school districts in the United States that…

Background: Concerns have been expressed that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) may be reducing the amount of classroom time devoted to subjects other than those for which students are tested. The purpose of this article is to explore whether NCLB legislation has affected the provision of evidence-based drug prevention curricula (EBC) in the nation's…

It is widely recognized that teacher training affects the fidelity with which evidence-based substance use prevention curricula are implemented. We present the results of a 2005 survey of teachers from a nationally representative sample of 1721 public middle schools in the U.S. (78.1% response rate). We measured fidelity along two dimensions…

We present the short-term results of a quasi-experimental evaluation of the revised D. A. R. E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) curriculum. Study outcomes examined were D. A. R. E.'s effects on three substances, namely students' lifetime and 30-day use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, as well as their school attendance and academic…

This study investigates the relative roles of school district and school-level decision-makers in the implementation of effective substance use prevention curricula. Drawing on a "Site-Based Management" approach to effective decision-making, we hypothesized that schools whose personnel played active decision-making roles would be more likely to…

This paper examines factors associated with the adoption of evidence-based substance use prevention curricula (EBC) in a national sample of school districts. Substance abuse prevention coordinators in public school districts (n = 1593), which were affiliated with a random sample of schools that served students in Grades 5-8, completed a written…