Adolescent Substance Abuse Prevention Study (ASAPS), 2001-2006 [Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark, New Orleans, St. Louis]

Randomized field trial designed to test the effectiveness of a new school-based substance abuse prevention program called Take Charge of Your Life (TCYL). The program consisted of 2 curricula, one for middle schools and the other for high schools, which were delivered through the Drug Abuse Resistance Education network of law enforcement officers (D.A.R.E.). TCYL was developed building on existing D.A.R.E. 7th/8th grade and 10th/11th grade curricula and applied principles and strategies suggested by published literature on effective drug abuse prevention programming and effective middle and high school curricula design. ASAPS was conducted among a 2001-2002 multi-site cohort of 7th graders who were followed for 5 years until the 2005-2006 school year when they were in the 11th grade. The 1st TCYL curriculum was delivered in the treatment schools when the students were in 7th grade and the 2nd was delivered when they were in the 9th grade. Over the 5-year study period, the treatment and control students responded to 7 self-administered surveys: (1) at baseline in the 7th grade, (2) post-intervention in the 7th grade, (3) in the 8th grade, (4) pre-intervention in the 9th grade, (5) post intervention in the 9th grade, (6) in the 10th grade, and (7) in the 11th grade. Topics covered by the surveys include normative beliefs, social skills, attitudes toward drug use, and self-reported use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other illicit drugs. Also include measures of implementation fidelity of the 7th grade TCYL curriculum from trained observers who rated the D.A.R.E. officers' delivery in the classroom. The fidelity measures encompass content coverage and instructional strategy.