Prevention
Prevention
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| Montel is a 12-year-old who has just started middle school. He is caught smoking before school with a group of other students. | |
| Sarah is a fifth-grader who is doing poorly academically. At a conference with her mother, the school counselor learns that her biological father (who is no longer involved with the family) is an active alcoholic. | |
| Manuel is in the fourth grade. He is a good student and is well-behaved in class. |
If you have read this text in sequence, you can see that most of the book involves topics related to the abuse of AOD. This reflects our view regarding the need for mental health professionals to acquire this information, given the frequency of AOD abuse in our society. However, this frequency is related to the effectiveness of efforts to prevent AOD abuse. Therefore, do not conclude that because there is only a single chapter devoted to this topic, that prevention is less important than the other topics in this book. On the contrary, we believe that prevention is critically important from both policy and program standpoints. In particular, those of you who are planning to work in public schools as counselors or social workers should go beyond the information in this chapter. Also, a growing number of prevention specialists who work for public and private organizations are involved with substance abuse prevention. These professionals also need a more thorough understanding of this field than is found in this chapter. The section “Prevention Resources” is a good place to start.
Why are Prevention Efforts Needed?
Why are prevention efforts needed? It is not a difficult question to answer. As you have read this text, you have received information on the problems caused by the abuse of AOD. So, if you take some action or actions that decrease the frequency of abuse, logically, the associated problems should also be reduced. For example, if there is a reduction in the number of people who chronically abuse alcohol, there should be a concomitant reduction in the number of people with medical problems resulting from chronic alcohol abuse. Therefore, prevention efforts designed to reduce the number of people who will end up abusing alcohol for many years are important and beneficial.
Most prevention efforts are directed toward young people. Again, this is logical because people generally make decisions about their use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs before they reach adulthood. As you know, it is illegal for people under 18 to use tobacco, for those under 21 to use alcohol, and for any age to use “street” drugs. Therefore, an examination of survey data on the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs by young people can provide information on the need for substance abuse prevention. Although several prominent surveys are conducted annually on the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs by young people, the information in Table 15.1 is from the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study (Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2011). MTF is a survey conducted by the University of Michigan and is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. In 2010, 46,500 8th, 10th, and 12th graders were surveyed. MTF has been conducted for the past 36 years, which makes trends easy to identify.
