The Community Youth Development Study: A Test of Communities That Care

Summary

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Preventing alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use; delinquency; violence; and health-risking sexual behavior among adolescents is a national priority. While advances in prevention science over the past two decades have produced a growing list of tested and effective programs and policies for preventin...

Preventing alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use; delinquency; violence; and health-risking sexual behavior among adolescents is a national priority. While advances in prevention science over the past two decades have produced a growing list of tested and effective programs and policies for preventing these behaviors, widespread dissemination and high-quality implementation of these effective programs and policies in communities has not been achieved. The development and testing of approaches for translating prevention research findings into effective community prevention service systems with long-term impact is important to achieving reductions in the prevalence of adolescent health and behavior problems that are sustained into adulthood. The Community Youth Development Study (CYDS) is a community-randomized trial of the effects of Communities That Care (CTC) on community prevention systems and adolescent risk, protection, and behavioral health outcomes. The current continuation study is evaluating the long-term effects of CTC on a panel of 4,407 young adults at ages 21 and 23 who have been surveyed regularly since the trial started when they were in grade 5. CTC is a prevention planning and capacity building system for improving behavioral health problems among youth community-wide. CTC guides communities to implement with fidelity and monitor the results of effective prevention programs that address community-specific elevated risk factors and depressed protective factors and reduce problem behavior. The CTC system is hypothesized first to produce improvements in key characteristics of community prevention service systems, which, in turn, reduce community levels of risk, increase protective factors, and lower rates of youth problem behaviors. The CYDS communities were matched in pairs within state, on population size, racial and ethnic diversity, economic indicators, and crime rates. One community from each matched pair was assigned randomly by a coin toss to either the intervention or control condition. Starting in 2003, intervention communities received training, technical assistance, and materials and funding needed to install the CTC prevention system in years 2-5 (2004-2008), hire a community coordinator, and implement 2-5 tested preventive interventions. Selected interventions addressed local prevention priorities established by communities after reviewing local epidemiological data on youth risk factors, protective factors and problem behaviors. Control communities received no training or technical assistance from the study. Technical assistance and study-provided funding to intervention communities ended after 5 years. The initial CYDS trial (2003-2008) evaluated the efficacy of CTC in reducing levels of risk, increasing levels of protection, and reducing levels of drug use and other problem behaviors in adolescents from Grades 5 through 9. It also tested the effects of CTC on prevention service system transformation (e.g., increases in a science-based approach to prevention, collaboration among prevention service organizations, support for prevention, community norms against drug use and delinquency, and use of the Social Development Strategy to guide interactions with youth) as reported by key community leaders and members of CTC coalitions. The first continuation study (2009-2013) assessed the effects of installation and implementation of CTC when panel youth were in Grades 10 through Age 19. During this period, panel youth passed through high school, the developmental period of greatest risk for delinquent and violent behavior, and a period of greatly increasing substance use and problems related to substance use. The study evaluated the long-term effects of CTC on adolescent and young adult risk and problem behaviors, including primary outcomes of substance use and abuse, delinquency, crime, and violence. It also evaluated the sustainability of the CTC prevention system without the study-provided funding and support that were offered during the implementation of CTC in the 12 intervention communities during the initial efficacy trial. The second continuation study (2013-2017) investigated the long-term effects of CTC on young adult substance use and misuse, crime, violence, and incarceration 11 and 13 years following CTC's initial installation. It also evaluated possible effects on a number of secondary outcomes salient in young adulthood, including HIV/AIDS sexual risk behavior, depression and suicidality, anxiety and other mental health disorders, and educational attainment. Panel youth were surveyed twice during the study, at ages 21 and 23. The third continuation study (2018-2023) further investigates the long-term effects of CTC on the study's primary outcomes of substance use and misuse, crime, violence, and incarceration 16 and 18 years after CTC was installed in intervention communities. As in the prior continuation, it will also evaluate possible long-term effects on salient secondary outcomes, including HIV/AIDS sexual risk behavior, depression and suicidality, anxiety and other mental health disorders, and educational attainment. Another major aim of this study is to examine the normative and legal environment around marijuana use in the U.S., which is becoming more permissive, raising concern that it will increase youth and young adult marijuana and other drug use and associated negative consequences including addiction. Understanding how marijuana use norms and behaviors in multiple social contexts (e.g., peer, family, and community) interact with the legal marijuana context and impact drug use behavior from age 11 to 28 will assist in the identification of malleable targets for interventions and public health approaches to prevent the possible negative outcomes of increasing permissiveness towards marijuana use. Panel participants will be surveyed twice, at ages 26 and 28.

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