Prevention efforts against substance use have focused primarily on children and adolescents because initial substance use is most likely to occur during adolescence and young adulthood. Primary prevention efforts include planned actions that help adolescents prevent predictable problems, protect existing states of health as well as healthy functioning, and promoting desired goals. This entry focuses on evidence-based prevention programs, which by definition have been developed and evaluated using well-controlled scientific methods.

Prevention Efforts

Although there are many substance use prevention programs, few have been evaluated in controlled experiments. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) maintains a list of prevention programs that have been evaluated in the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP). The NREPP defines evidence-based programs as those that (a) ...

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