Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #106124

Jeffrey R.W. Knudsen, MA¹, Katherine E. Laws, BA¹, and Matthew Margolis, BA². (1) RMC Research Corporation, 522 S.W. Fifth Avenue, Suite 1407, Portland, OR 97204, 503-223-8248, jknudsen@rmccorp.com, (2) Oregon Partnership, 6443 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, Suite 200, Portland, OR 97221

In 2003, Oregon Partnership, a community-based alcohol and other drug prevention organization, developed the Methamphetamine Awareness Project (MAP). MAP is an innovative new program that combines substance abuse prevention theory with the creative energy and abilities of young people to develop prevention messages conveying the consequences of methamphetamine use. Participating youth learn from and work with prevention and treatment specialists, law enforcement officials, their peers, and professional filmmakers to create a prevention intervention tool intended to reduce teen methamphetamine use and raise community awareness about the dangers of methamphetamine.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) awarded a 3-year grant to Oregon Partnership to implement MAP in rural Oregon. Given the innovative nature of the project, one of Oregon's Partnership's goals is to submit the program to the National Registry of Effective Programs and Practices (NREPP). This goal is congruent with recent movement in the state toward mandated use of evidenced-based practices in the provision of treatment and prevention services.

In order to gather evidence sufficient to warrant inclusion in NREPP, an evaluation featuring a randomized control design was implemented. The presentation will provide an overview of the evaluation design and preliminary results, as well as discuss the challenges related to: (1) implementing a rigorous evaluation design in a community-based prevention setting and (2) detecting significant prevention outcomes.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will gain a better understanding of the move toward evidence based practice, and the related implications for prevention service providers.
• Participants will learn how rigorous evaluation is essential to prevention programs if they are to demonstrate outcomes sufficient to be considered “evidenced-based”.
• Participants will gain an understanding of the challenges related to implementing a rigorous evaluation design in a community-based prevention setting.

Keywords: Prevention, Evidence Based Practice

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.