Prevention Services & Programs
Acronyms and Terminolgy Glossary
Sources: Southwest Prevention Center, Partners for Substance Abuse Prevention, a SAMHSA/CSAP
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Logic Model
A pictorial respresentation of connections between the activities, strategies and methods and goals of an initiative or enterprise; a flow chart.
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Measures
The tools used to obtain the information or evidence needed to answer a research question. They are similar to indicators, but more concrete and specific. Often an indicator will have multiple measures. Indicators are statements about what will be measured; measures answer the question about exactly how will it be measured.
Mentoring
A structured relationship between an individual with expertise in a given area(s) and an individual who is a novice. In substance abuse prevention, the mentor is generally an older, more experienced adult who fosters the development of character, self-esteem, and competence of a young person.
Merger
A merger is the legal consolidation of two or more organizations into one entity.
Model Programs
Model Programs are well-implemented, well-evaluated programs, meaning they have been reviewed by the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practicies (NREPP) according to rigorous standards of research. Developers, whose programs have the capacity to become Model Programs, have coordinated and agreed with SAMHSA to provide quality materials, training, and technical assistance for nationwide implementation.
Moderating
A term that describes a third variable's relationship to a dependent and an independent variable, in which the third variable partitions the independent variable into subgroups that establish its domains of maximal effectiveness in regard to the dependent variable. The moderator may be qualitative or quantitative, and it affects the direction and/or strength of the relation between the independent and the dependent variable. Within an ANOVA framework, the moderator effect can be represented as an interaction between an independent variable and a factor that specifies particular conditions for its effect.
Any subjective or objective departure from a state of physiological or psychological well-being. (Sickness, illness, and morbid condition are synonyms in this sense.) Also, an actuarial determination of the incidence and severity of sicknesses and accidents in a well-defined class or classes of persons.
Mortality
An actuarial determination of the death rate at each age as determined from prior experience
Multi-Component Program
Multi-component program is a prevention program that simultaneously uses multiple interventions that target one or more substance abuse problems. Programs that involve coordinated multiple interventions are likely to be more effective in achieving the desired goals than single-component programs and programs that involve multiple but uncoordinated interventions.
Multivariate
The analysis of the relationships among three or more variables.
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Needs Assessment
Activities that include surveys of various targeted populations, assessment of prevention resources within the state, studies of current outcome indicators, geodemographic analyses of social marketing data, and household and school surveys. CSAP has supported 27 States in various needs assessment activities and methodologies for the past 4 years, helping them to target their prevention programming dollars by providing sound data on specific populations and localities and identifying distribution of particular risk factors.
NPN - National Prevention Network
The National Prevention Network; an arm of the National Association of State Drug Abuse Directors which provides policy and program guidance to SAMHSA / CSAP on substance abuse prevention issues. NPN also serves as a national advocacy organization for the promotion of prevention science.
Non-Profit Organization
A non-profit organization is one that is organized for an educational, charitable, cultural, religious, social, or athletic purpose. A nonprofit organization can be in business and make money, but any profits must be used for the organization's objectives and not for distribution to members.
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Organizational Effectiveness
Having the structures and systems in place to allow an agency to grow, adapt, innovate, and take advantage of new opportunities resulting in improved internal processes and external outcomes for its clients.
Outcome
The extent of change in targeted attitudes, values, behaviors, or conditions between baseline measurement and subsequent points of measurement. Depending on the nature of the intervention and the theory of change guiding it, changes can be immediate, intermediate, final, and longer-term outcomes. For example, changes in attitudes and values may be the final outcome of an informational intervention. However, changes in attitudes and values may be the immediate outcome of a parenting program that builds on those changes to bring about changes in communication patterns and other skills (intermediate outcomes). Changes in communication patterns would, in turn, strengthen middle school children's resistance to negative peer pressure (intermediate outcome), resulting in a delay in the onset of substance use (final outcome).
Outcome Evaluation
A type of evaluation used to identify the results of a program's effort. It seeks to answer the question, what difference did the program make? It yields evidence about the effects of a program after a specified period of operation.
Outcome Measures
Assessments that gauge the effect or results of services provided to a defined population. Outcomes measures include the consumers' perception of restoration of function, quality of life, and functional status, as well as objective measures of mortality, morbidity, and health status.
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Participatory Evaluation
Participatory evaluation is the process of engaging stakeholders in an evaluation effort. (Typical stakeholders - the people most invested in the success of a program - include staff, board members, volunteers, sister agencies, and funders.) Getting input from your stakeholders at all stages of your evaluation effort - from deciding what questions to ask, to collecting data, to analyzing data and presenting results - is critical to the usefulness and ultimate value of the evaluation. A participatory approach to evaluation gets the "buy-in" of as many stakeholders as possible so that they have a feeling of ownership over evaluation results. This helps to create an atmosphere where people want to learn about how and why programs are achieving results.
Partnership
A partnership is a relationship where two or more parties, having common and compatible goals, agree to work together for a particular purpose and/or for some period of time.
Prevalence
The number of all new and old cases of a disease or occurrences of an event during a particular time period, usually expressed as a rate, with the number of cases or events as the numerator and the population at risk as the denominator. Prevalence rates are often presented in standard terms, such as the number of cases per 100,000 population.
Pre SIG
The State Incentive Planning Grant (SIPG); awarded to non SIG recipient states to support the development of capacity to plan for youth substance abuse prevention. The State Incentive Planning Grant also known as the Governor's Cooperative Agreement for State Incentive Planning Grant for Youth Substance Abuse Prevention is a cooperative Planning
Prevention
Prevention is a proactive process that empowers individuals and systems to meet the challenges of life events and transitions by creating and reinforcing conditions that promote healthy behaviors and lifestyles. The goal of substance abuse prevention is the fostering of a climate in which (a) alcohol use is acceptable only for those of legal age and only when the risk of adverse consequences is minimal; (b) prescription and over-the-counter drugs are used only for the purposes for which they were intended; (c) other abusable substances (e.g., aerosols) are used only for their intended purposes; and (d) illegal drugs and tobacco are not used at all.
Prevention Types (Universal, Selected, Indicated)
Universal prevention measures are desirable for everyone in the eligible population, both general and specific groups. Often such measures can be applied without professional advice or assistance. The benefits outweigh the risks and costs for everyone. Examples of universal prevention include use of seatbelts, a good diet, avoidance of smoking, immunization. Selected prevention is desirable only when the individual is a member of a subgroup whose risk of becoming ill is above average. Subgroups can be based on age, gender, occupation, or family history. An example of selective prevention would be immunization against yellow fever for some travelers; another is breast cancer examinations at young ages for those with a family history of breast cancer. Indicated prevention is for persons who have a risk factor, condition, or abnormality that places them at high risk for future development of the disease. Examples are various screening programs for particular diseases such as HIV testing and needle exchange programs for injected-drug users.
Principles of Effectiveness (U.S. Department of Education
According to the Department of Education
to ensure that recipients of Title IV funds use those funds in ways that preserve State and local flexibility and are most likely to reduce drug use and violence among youth, a recipient shall (1) base its programs on a thorough assessment of objective data about the drug and violence problems in the schools and communities served; (2) with the assistance of a local or regional advisory council where required by the SDFSCA, establish a set of measurable goals and objectives and design its programs to meet those goals and objectives; (3) design and implement its programs for youth based on research or evaluation that provides evidence that the programs used prevent or reduce drug use, violence, or disruptive behavior among youth; and (4) evaluate its programs periodically to assess its progress toward achieving its goals and objectives, and use its evaluation results to refine, improve, and strengthen its program, and to refine its goals and objectives as appropriate.
Process Evaluation
Process evaluation focuses on how a program was implemented and operates. It identifies the procedures undertaken and the decisions made in developing the program. It describes how the program operates, the services it delivers, and the functions it carries out. It addresses whether the program was implemented and is providing services as intended. However, by additionally documenting the program's development and operation, it allows an assessment of the reasons for successful or unsuccessful performance and provides information for potential replication.
Process Measures
Measures of participation, "dosage," staffing, and other factors related to implementation. Process measures are not outcomes, because they describe events that are inputs to the delivery of an intervention
Program
A coordinated set of activities designed to achieve specific objectives over a period of time
Program Evaluation
Program evaluation is the systematic collection of information to answer important questions about activities, characteristics, and outcomes of a program. Evaluation stages include design, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, and reporting.
Promising Program
In CSAP's terminology, the first of three categories of science-based programs on a continuum that concludes with model programs. Promising programs are those that have been reasonably good enough for the program to qualify as an effective program. CSAP's hope is that promising programs, through additional refinement and evaluation, will evolve into effective and model programs.
Protective Factors
Protective factors are those characteristics that may strengthen resilience and thus guard against the occurrence of a particular problem.
Proxy Measures
Data that can be used as an indicator -- an indirect measure of of substance use or abuse. In general, multiple indirect measures (proxies) are more reliable than a single proxy.
Public Health Model
A model that represents the interactions among the agent, host, and environment. In substance abuse prevention, the agent is alcohol or drugs or the sources, supplies, and availability of alcohol and drugs. Hosts can be seen as the potential and/or active substance users. The environment is the social climate that encourages and supports the potential and/or actual use of substances. The public health model posits that all of these factors must be addressed together for prevention to be effective.
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Quantitative Data
Quantitative data is numeric information that includes things like personal income, amount of time, or a rating of an opinion on a scale from 1 to 5. Even things that you do not think of as quantitative, like feelings, can be collected using numbers if you create scales to measure them. Quantitative data is used with closed-ended questions, where users are given a limited set of possible answers to a question. They are for responses that fall into a relatively narrow range of possible answers.
Qualitative Data
Qualitative data is a record of thoughts, observations, opinions, or words. Qualitative data typically comes from asking open-ended questions to which the answers are not limited by a set of choices or a scale. Examples of qualitative data include answers to questions like, how can the program be improved? or What did you like best about your experience? - used only if the user is not restricted by a pre-selected set of answers. Qualitative data is best used to gain answers to questions that produce too many possible answers to list them all or for answers that you would like in the participant's own words. Qualitative data is more time-consuming to analyze than quantitative data.
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Random Sampling
Random sampling is a process by which the people in a sample are chosen at random from a given population. For example in a population of 100 people, everyone can be assigned a unique number, then the numbers are put in a hat, and 40 numbers are drawn to choose 40 people to be in that sample. These are the people from whom you would collect information. In a random sample, all of the people in the population have an equal chance of being chosen.
Resilience
Resilience is either the capacity to recover from traumatically adverse life events and other types of adversity and achieve eventual restoration or improvement of competent functioning or the capability to withstand chronic stress and to sustain competent functioning despite ongoing stressful and adverse life conditions.
Risk Factors
Risk factors are characteristics associated with potential substance abuse problems. However, they are not necessarily the cause of the problem.
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