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Prevention System Mediation of Communities That Care Effects on Youth Outcomes

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Abstract

This study examined whether the significant intervention effects of the Communities That Care (CTC) prevention system on youth problem behaviors observed in a panel of eighth-grade students (Hawkins et al. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 163:789–798 2009) were mediated by community-level prevention system constructs posited in the CTC theory of change. Potential prevention system constructs included the community’s degree of (a) adoption of a science-based approach to prevention, (b) collaboration on prevention activities, (c) support for prevention, and (d) norms against adolescent drug use as reported by key community leaders in 24 communities. Higher levels of community adoption of a science-based approach to prevention and support for prevention in 2004 predicted significantly lower levels of youth problem behaviors in 2007, and higher levels of community norms against adolescent drug use predicted lower levels of youth drug use in 2007. Effects of the CTC intervention on youth problem behaviors by the end of eighth grade were mediated fully by community adoption of a science-based approach to prevention. No other significant mediated effects were found. Results support CTC’s theory of change that encourages communities to adopt a science-based approach to prevention as a primary mechanism for improving youth outcomes.

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Notes

  1. Data on the fifth prevention system construct, utilization of the social development strategy, were not available for the examined wave of data and were not included in this study.

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This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01 DA015183-03), with co-funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Cancer Institute, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration/Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. The content of this paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

Portions of this study were presented in May 2010 at the 18th annual meeting of the Society for Prevention Research in Washington, DC.

Richard F. Catalano is a board member of Channing Bete Company, distributor of Supporting School Success® and Guiding Good Choices®. These programs were used in some communities in the study that produced the data set used in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Social Development Research Group, School of Social Work, University of Washington, 9725 3rd Avenue NE, Suite 401, Seattle, WA, 98115, USA

    Eric C. Brown, J. David Hawkins, Sabrina Oesterle, Michael W. Arthur, John S. Briney & Richard F. Catalano

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Isaac C. Rhew

  3. School of Social Welfare, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Valerie B. Shapiro

  4. College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Robert D. Abbott

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  1. Eric C. Brown
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  2. J. David Hawkins
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Correspondence to Eric C. Brown.

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Brown, E.C., Hawkins, J.D., Rhew, I.C. et al. Prevention System Mediation of Communities That Care Effects on Youth Outcomes. Prev Sci 15, 623–632 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-013-0413-7

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