Alaska's alternative high schools use trauma-engaged practices in their education model. Thirteen focus groups with 100 alternative high school educators, staff and administrators were conducted. The study sought to describe the Alaska alternative high school staffs' perspectives on effective practices and impact of alternative education on drug…

Purpose: Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other drugs use typically increases in prevalence and frequency during middle and late adolescence. School health instruction often focusses on providing facts and rarely provides tools for addressing the psychosocial risk factors needed to prevent substance use. The purpose of this paper is to report about…

As colleges and universities acknowledge the connection between behavioral health and student success, ACTA releases this powerful report calling for a new level of awareness and collaborative action by presidents and trustees to address student alcohol and drug use. The report provides examples of successful, evidence-based programs implemented…

Background: Synthetic and other drugs have become available to teens, yet little is known about risk factors of use. Objective: To examine adolescent use of one class of synthetic drugs and its association with perceptions about its prevalence, access, and risk of substance use. Methods: Adolescents from a convenience sample of 104 middle and high…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention established School Health Profiles (Profiles) in 1996 to monitor school health policies and practices in secondary schools in states and school districts across the United States. Profiles is a system of surveys conducted biennially in even-numbered years and provides data on the following topics:…

This study was an investigation into drug use and sources of drug information among secondary school students in Imo State, Nigeria. A sample of 1400 students, aged 16-17 years was studied. Percentages were used to describe the students' drug use and sources of drug information. Chi square was used to verify the four hypotheses postulated for the…

Aim: This pilot study investigated what alcohol prevention benefits could be achieved by a harm reduction focused school drug education intervention that addressed all drug use, both licit and illicit. Method: The study population comprised a cohort of 225 students in three intervention secondary schools and 93 students in a matched control school…

Sixth graders participating in the "Too Good for Drugs" (TGFD) prevention program in comparison to 6th graders not participating show different results by student risk level. Sixth graders from 20 middle schools were randomly assigned to receive the intervention and those from 20 paired middle schools assigned to serve as controls (N =…

Research shows that social norms interventions, which aim to educate individuals and groups on their actual attitudinal and behavioural norms relating to alcohol, cigarette and drug use,incur some success in reducing positive attitudes to substance use and rates of substance use. The research aimed to investigate the extent of misperceptions…

Background: REBOUND is a novel media-based life skills and risk education programme developed for 14- to 25-year olds in school, university or youth group settings. This paper outlines the programme's rationale, curriculum and implementation. It provides information of relevance to researchers, programme developers and policymakers. Methods/design…

The objective of this study was to evaluate the integration of a screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) curriculum for alcohol and other drug use into a pediatric residency program. Pediatric and medicine/pediatric residents in an adolescent medicine rotation located in an urban teaching hospital participated in the…

Drug prevention efforts in elementary schools are widespread. Nonetheless, there are clear challenges that both researchers and practitioners face. Because there may be occasional unintended negative outcomes--statistically these are guaranteed--does not mean all prevention efforts should grind to a halt. It is far better that any observed…

The purpose of this paper is to show how "realist synthesis" methodology (Pawson, 2002) was adapted to review a large sample of community based projects addressing alcohol and drug use problems. Our study drew on a highly varied sample of 127 projects receiving funding from a national non-government organisation in Australia between 2002…

Using a randomized controlled effectiveness trial, we examined the effects of Project SUCCESS on a range of secondary outcomes, including the program's mediating variables. Project SUCCESS, which is based both on the Theory of Reasoned Action and on Cognitive Behavior Theory, is a school-based substance use prevention program that targets…

The purpose of the study was to compare 30-day prevalence of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use among twelfth-grade students in Montana across a rural-urban continuum during 2000, 2002, and 2004. The methods include an analysis of the Montana Prevention Needs Assessment (N = 15,372) using multivariable logistic regression adjusting for risk…