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Testing Communities That Care: The Rationale, Design and Behavioral Baseline Equivalence of the Community Youth Development Study

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Abstract

Recent advances in prevention science provide evidence that adolescent health and behavior problems can be prevented by high-quality prevention services. However, many communities continue to use prevention strategies that have not been shown to be effective. Studying processes for promoting the dissemination and high-quality implementation of prevention strategies found to be effective in controlled research trials has become an important focus for prevention science. The Communities That Care prevention operating system provides manuals, tools, training, and technical assistance to activate communities to use advances in prevention science to plan and implement community prevention services to reduce adolescent substance use, delinquency, and related health and behavior problems. This paper describes the rationale, aims, intervention, and design of the Community Youth Development Study, a randomized controlled community trial of the Communities That Care system, and investigates the baseline comparability of the 12 intervention and 12 control communities in the study. Results indicate baseline similarity of the intervention and control communities in levels of adolescent drug use and antisocial behavior prior to the Communities That Care intervention. Strengths and limitations of the study’s design are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Twelfth-grade data currently being collected will provide multiple baselines for possible future investigations of longer-term outcomes associated with CTC intervention focused on Grades 5 through 9.

  2. Respondents were considered dishonest if they reported responding dishonestly to the survey, endorsed frequency of monthly substance use across four substances that exceeded 120 times, reported the same frequency of high use across eight substances, reported the same frequency of high engagement across all antisocial behaviors, or answered certain items in an inconsistent or unreasonable fashion (e.g., monthly use of a fictitious drug more than once or twice).

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a research grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01 DA015183-01A1) with co-funding from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. The authors are grateful for the contributions of the communities participating in the CYDS and the collaboration of the state drug abuse prevention agencies of Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    J. David Hawkins, Richard F. Catalano, Michael W. Arthur, Elizabeth Egan & Eric C. Brown

  2. Educational Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Robert D. Abbott

  3. Division of Epidemiology, College of Medicine and Public Health, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    David M. Murray

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  1. J. David Hawkins
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  2. Richard F. Catalano
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  3. Michael W. Arthur
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  7. David M. Murray
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Correspondence to J. David Hawkins.

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Hawkins, J.D., Catalano, R.F., Arthur, M.W. et al. Testing Communities That Care: The Rationale, Design and Behavioral Baseline Equivalence of the Community Youth Development Study. Prev Sci 9, 178–190 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-008-0092-y

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