Economic Evaluation of Drug Abuse Prevention with Rural African AmericanYouth

说明(申请人提供)：青少年药物滥用对青少年的健康和福祉构成重大威胁，预示着心理和社会适应不良、参与刑事司法系统、艾滋病毒/艾滋病和其他性传播感染的传播以及未来的药物滥用问题。尽管预防青少年药物滥用的潜在好处是巨大的，但人们对药物滥用预防计划的实施成本和经济影响知之甚少。政策制定者、社区组织、学校系统、卫生部门和其他提供药物滥用预防服务的机构需要这些信息，以便就稀缺的公共卫生资源的分配做出艰难的决定。对于数百万有青少年生活在农村、资源匮乏环境中的非裔美国家庭来说，没有关于预防药物滥用的成本和好处的数据。为了满足这一需求，科尔索博士与布罗迪博士和科根博士合作，他们正在进行一项针对农村非裔美国青少年的药物滥用预防项目的预防试验，以及E·迈克尔·福斯特博士，后者在对以年轻人为重点的预防项目进行经济评估方面拥有丰富的经验。在这份申请中，我们请求提供资金，以对非洲裔美国人家庭-青少年(SAAF-T)计划进行经济评估。SAAF-T是针对小学生的有效的SAAF药物滥用预防计划的适当发展改编，基于对农村非裔美国家庭15年的纵向研究和广泛的社区投入。目前正在对500名10年级学生及其家庭进行随机预防试验。三个相辅相成的经济分析为SAAF-T的经济影响提供了全面的评估：方案成本分析、效益-成本分析和成本-效果分析。SAAF-T预防试验提供了一个宝贵的机会，既可以确定对服务不足和研究不足的人群进行干预的成本和收益，也可以采用经济评估和药物滥用治疗文献中的方法，这将促进未来预防药物滥用的研究和政策发展。公共卫生相关性：一个由经济评估和药物滥用预防方面的多学科专家组成的小组建议对为农村非裔美国青少年设计的以家庭为中心的药物滥用预防计划进行前瞻性经济评估。拟议的经济分析为政策制定者和药物滥用预防提供者提供了关于预防药物滥用的成本和好处的重要信息。这项拟议的研究将支持未来向生活在资源匮乏的农村环境中的数百万非裔美国青年传播有效的药物滥用计划的努力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adolescent drug abuse poses a major threat to the health and well-being of youth, forecasting poor psychological and social adjustment, involvement with the criminal justice system, transmission of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, and future drug abuse problems. Despite the fact that the potential benefits of preventing adolescent drug abuse are enormous, very little is known about the implementation costs and economic impact of drug abuse prevention programs. Policymakers, community-based organizations, school systems, health departments, and other agencies that deliver drug abuse prevention services need this information to make difficult decisions regarding the allocation of scarce public health resources. For the several million African American families with adolescents living in rural, resource-poor environments, no data exist on the costs and benefits of preventing drug abuse. To address this need, Dr. Corso has partnered with Drs. Brody and Kogan, who are conducting a prevention trial of a drug abuse prevention program for rural African American adolescents, and with Dr. E. Michael Foster, who has extensive experience in conducting economic evaluations of youth-focused prevention programs. In this application, we request funding to conduct an economic evaluation of the Strong African American Families-Teen (SAAF-T) program. A developmentally appropriate adaptation of the efficacious SAAF drug abuse prevention program for elementary school youth, SAAF-T is based on 15 years of longitudinal research with rural African American families and extensive community input. It is currently being tested in a randomized prevention trial with 500 10th-grade students and their families. Three complementary economic analyses, which provide a comprehensive assessment of SAAF-T's economic impact, are proposed: programmatic cost analysis, benefit-cost analysis, and cost-effectiveness analysis. The SAAF-T prevention trial provides an invaluable opportunity both to determine the costs and benefits of the intervention on an underserved and understudied population and to adapt methods from the economic evaluation and drug abuse treatment literature that will foster future research and policy development on drug abuse prevention. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: A multi-disciplinary team of experts in economic evaluation and drug abuse prevention propose to conduct a prospective economic evaluation of a family-centered drug abuse prevention program designed for rural African American adolescents. The proposed economic analyses provide important information for policy makers and drug abuse prevention providers regarding the costs and the benefits of drug abuse prevention. The proposed study would support future efforts to disseminate effective drug abuse programs to the several million African American youth living in resource poor, rural environments.