Applying Primary Prevention Precepts to Campus Substance Abuse Programs

Abstract

The authors identify five primary prevention programming precepts dealing with perspective, targets, methods, intentionality, and ethic. They describe how the United States Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) sponsored University of Cincinnati substance abuse prevention project was developed by following these precepts. They hope that this information will aid others in their development of primary prevention programs in college substance abuse (i.e., alcohol and other drug abuse) or in other areas.

Group-based prevention programs for at-risk adolescents and adults

“…The classical definition describes prevention as an intervention applied "before the fact" of illness to healthy individuals to prevent the occurrence of a disorder for which they are at risk (Coie et al, 1993;Conyne et al, 1994). A number of studies explored prevention of a target malady (e.g., engaging in substance abuse, contracting sexually transmitted disease) in a population that is at risk in part because its members suffer from another malady (e.g., depression, schizophrenia).…”

“…JOURNAL FOR SPECIALISTS IN GROUP WORK / September 2001 ration advocated by Conyne et al (1994). We urge prevention specialists to tap the power of reference groups representative of targeted at-risk populations to shape the design of prevention plans (Tang et al, 1999).…”

Interactive Multimedia Preventive Alcohol Education: An Evaluation of Effectiveness with College Students

“…Alcohol programming on college campuses follows several trends in the field of prevention [8] . First, there is a realization that preventive interventions often have a modest impact on behavior [9,10]. Evaluations of the change realized in college students' alcohol attitudes, knowledge, and behavior have had mixed results for peer education [11][12][13] and for alcohol education discipline [14].…”