School-based drug prevention in Russia:Capacity Building

Lars Research Institute, Inc., Las Vegas NV

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This R13 conference grant involves capacity building and behavioral science technology transfer stimulating adoption of effective school-based drug abuse prevention practices by the Russian prevention community. The conference agenda is designed around four thematically integrated sessions that will enable participants to plan, implement, and evaluate (P.I.E.) their own culturally sound secondary school drug prevention programs. The conference organizing team draws on over 40 years of combined expertise in conducting group-randomized prevention trials and provides a strong acumen in prevention science, dissemination, and in-service teacher training. The cross-national flavor of this conference is effectively designed to promote adoption and adaptation while at the same time addressing many of the program fidelity and implementation barriers that prevent Russian prevention experts from engaging in state-of-the-art program development and evaluation. Notably, Russian prevention practices lag considerably behind current US prevention technology and there exist few mechanisms addressing successful technology transfer for behavioral sciences. This may be unfortunate, particularly in light of recent epidemiological findings highlighting relatively high rates of alcohol and other illicit drug use among Russian youth compared to their US counterparts. The sheer absence of any sophisticated prevention information coupled with the lack of active diffusion methods may hamper Russia's attempts to control or even eliminate the problem of adolescent drug abuse. A series of focus groups with students, teachers, and administrators augments the conference agenda and collects more refined and detailed information regarding perceived barriers to effective implementation. This project has the potential to elucidate those formative mechanisms that represent potential barriers to effective diffusion of "best" prevention practices on an international scale. In concert with recognizing these barriers, a program of translational knowledge diffusion and services research can benefit tremendously Russia's fledging school-based drug prevention activities.