Jump Start: A Targeted Substance Abuse Prevention Program

Nancy Grant Harrington, Lewis Donohew

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

A substance abuse prevention and life skills program for economically disadvantaged, high sensation seeking African American teens was developed and tested in Cincinnati, Ohio. Formative research was conducted to determine program content and format. Over two implementations, 289 individuals in the target population were recruited as participants for the field test of the program. For the first implementation, participants were randomly selected from the city's summer youth employment program. For the second, a media campaign was designed to recruit participants. Process evaluation indicated that participants evaluated the program extremely positively. Outcome evaluation indicated that significant pretest differences between high and low sensation seekers were neutralized for liquor and marijuana in both years of the program and for attitude toward drugs in the first year of the program. These results suggest that sensation seeking is a useful message design and audience-targeting variable for substance abuse prevention program design. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)568-586
Number of pages19
JournalHealth Education and Behavior
Volume24
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1997

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

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