Getting to Outcomes: A Community-Based Participatory Approach to Preventive Interventions

Getting to Outcomes: A Community-Based Participatory Approach to Preventive Interventions

PIs: Matthew Chinman, Sarah Hunter, Pat Ebener

Funded by: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Substance abuse prevention programs can improve community health, but only when they are implemented well. Effective implementation is difficult given the advanced skills required, causing a gap between the positive outcomes achieved by prevention science and those observed in practice. A new DPRC study seeks to address this gap through a model that emphasizes collaboration between science and practice. The model, called "Getting to Outcomes" (GTO), is based on the premise that preventive interventions should be consistent with the principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR). In CBPR, community members are directly involved in research, leading to outcomes that are often more relevant, more widely utilized, and of better quality. GTO includes both a prevention process and a corresponding technical assistance package that can be used to develop community-based participatory interventions.

GTO involves a ten-step process to enhance practitioners' prevention skills while empowering them to plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs. To test GTO, the researchers recently began a Centers for Disease Control - funded participatory research project in two substance abuse prevention coalitions in the United States. Coalitions organize interventions on multiple levels (individual, organizational, and policy) and across sectors (parents, youth, criminal justice, and education). The project includes GTO training and significant technical assistance. GTO's impact will be assessed through evaluation of individual programs as well as surveys administered to all coalitions before GTO implementation, and at 12 and 24 months following implementation. Standard assessment techniques will be used to track GTO utilization. After seven months, 48 persons from the coalitions have been trained and four programs have begun to receive technical assistance on completing the GTO steps. Although it is too early for results, field notes show that GTO is already changing the way the prevention programs are implemented.