Drug Prevention Research for High-Risk Youth

Abstract

Indicated prevention research with youth at high risk has the potential for extending the empirical base for preventive interventions that lead to accepted, sustained, and effective programs. Such research has great potential for directly improving public health and decreasing the enormous social costs incurred from drug abuse and its impact on the leading causes of death among our youth. The need for these programs is substantial: approximately 25% of adolescents lead high-risk lifestyles and fit the criteria for indicated drug abuse prevention efforts. Combining school, peer, and parent approaches appear to be necessary to reconnect high-risk youth to school and halt the progression from drug involvement to drug abuse and addiction. The goal of indicated prevention trials is to produce proven programs that reduce the occurrence and extent of drug abuse among high-risk youth. Much work remains to be done in this field. It will take concerted efforts, funding for preintervention studies, and complex, methodologically sound, indicated prevention efficacy trials to make reaching this goal possible.