Drug Abuse: Prevention

Mary Ann Pentz

Drug abuse, including tobacco and alcohol abuse, is a major health and social problem in the United States, contributing significantly to both adult and youth morbidity and mortality. The field of drug abuse prevention aims to reduce these morbidities, mortalities, and attendant costs by two means: preventing onset of drug use among youth, and preventing progression to heavy use and abuse among those youth who have already started using drugs. The purpose of this entry is to review effective drug abuse prevention efforts, issues in prevention, and future directions for research and practice. Prevention is defined as any program or strategy that has as its goal either delay of onset, delay of progression from lower to higher use prevalence (frequency) or consumption (amount), or decrease in prevalence and consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs. The majority of prevention strategies are school-based programs for youth. While these programs range from ...

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