How Cultural Factors Influence School-Based Substance Use Prevention Programs

Abstract

This article analyzes school-based substance use prevention programs, comparing programs in the United States and Nordic countries, explores how cultural factors influence the ways in which prevention programs are designed and implemented, and how evaluation is affected by design and implementation.

Keywords:

• prevention
• school
• alcohol use
• drug use

Notes

Notes

1. Environments have dimensions, which include, among others: a relationship dimension, personal development dimension, maintenance and change dimensions, emotional catalyzer dimensions, information catalyzer/processing dimensions, environmental perceptions, attitudes and values dimensions, problem-solving/adaptational dimensions, dimension definer/boundary definer (Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes and Values. Tuan, Prentice Hall, 1974). Editor's note.

2. Prevention programs continue to be challenged to demonstrate their effectiveness (process and outcomes; short-term and long-term). Sir Bradford Hill posited nine criteria in 1965 to help assist researchers and clinicians determine the status of causes. outcome and associations. The nine criteria include: strength of association, consistency between studies, temporality, biological gradient, biological plausibility, coherence, specificity, experimental evidence, and analogy (Hill, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 58, 295–300. The Environment and Disease: Associations or Causation?, 1965). Editor's note.

3. The dimensions of this needed cooperation will need to be sensitive to the “demands” of the selected research paradigms: unidisciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary. Editor's note.