Project Towards No Drug Abuse: long-term substance use outcomes evaluation.
OBJECTIVE
This paper presents up to 5 years post-program outcomes of Project Towards No Drug Abuse (Project TND), a drug abuse prevention program conducted in South California alternative high school system during years 1994-1999.


METHODS
The effects of a 9-session health motivation--social skills--decision-making curriculum were evaluated. Twenty-one schools recruited were randomly assigned to standard care (control), classroom only, or a classroom plus semester-long school-as-community component. Last 30-day use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and hard drugs were assessed at three time intervals: short-term (year 1), middle-term (years 2 or 3), and long-term (years 4 or 5). Multilevel random coefficients modeling were employed to estimate the adjusted levels of substance use.


RESULTS
Among 1578 baseline subjects, follow-up data were available for 68% (year 1), 66% (years 2 or 3), and 46% (years 4 or 5) of subjects, respectively. Results revealed significant positive long-term program effects for hard drug use at year 4 or 5 for the two program interventions (P = 0.02).


CONCLUSIONS
Project TND reduced hard drug use in the 46% who were successfully followed. It is the first program to demonstrate long-term self-reported behavioral effects on hard drug use among high-risk youth by using a school-based, limited-session model.
Sun
Wei
W
Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, 1000 S. Fremont Avenue, Box 8, Alhambra, CA 91803, USA. wsun@usc.edu
Skara
Silvana
S
Sun
Ping
P
Dent
Clyde W
CW
Sussman
Steve
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D002140:California / Q000453:epidemiology; D003479:Curriculum; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012572:School Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*