Do Drug Prevention Effects Persist into High School? How Project ALERT Did with Ninth Graders

• NCJ Number: 153508
• Author(s): R M Bell; P L Ellickson; E R Harrison
• Date Published: 1993
• Length: 21 pages
• Sale Source: Rand Corporation
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC. Rand Reprints, Reprinted from Preventive Medicine, V 22 (1993), P 463-483

Annotation

This article reports follow-up results during Grade 9 for a multisite drug prevention program.

Abstract

Earlier effects on cognitive risk factors (perceived consequences of drug use, normative beliefs, resistance self-efficacy, and expectations of future use) persisted through Grade 9 in the teen leader schools; in the condition under which adults taught the lessons without teens, the prior beneficial effects on beliefs largely eroded. All of the earlier effects on actual use disappeared by Grade 9, regardless of who taught the lessons. The authors conclude that continued reinforcement of earlier lessons may be required to sustain prevention gains through the transition to high school. Footnotes, tables, figures, references