The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has launched several technology transfer programs in order to promote further research on substance abuse issues and to enhance application of the findings in service delivery. Several programs develop, produce and distribute publications/materials describing research findings to fellow scientists/researchers and related health care practitioners. Others programs package information about affective prevention and treatment interventions in meaningful and useful ways for service agencies and practitioners. This information is disseminated through NIDA conferences and sets of materials (commonly called technology transfer packages) which describe the intervention protocols, address implementation issues and provide staff development resource products. The general purpose of this contract is to evaluate several of these NIDA technology transfer programs and to enhance NIDA's internal system to evaluate future technology transfer programs. Contract objective include: to evaluate NIDA technology transfer packages along several dimensions. These include information and presentation format utility, relative efficacy in stimulating service program innovations, identification of implementation obstacles, strategies for overcoming such obstacles and additional technical assistance needs. to evaluate various components of the 1993 NIDA Technology Transfer Conference. The evaluation foci are similar to those in the preceding paragraph and will also allow comparisons regarding relative efficacy among the various conference components. to evaluate the effectiveness of current NIDA research dissemination programs to scientists and medical practitioners and to assess the needs of these professional and other health care providers for substance abuse research findings. to make recommendations regarding policy guidelines, system components and procedures for future technology transfer evaluation efforts. to contribute to the body of scientific knowledge regarding technology transfer evaluation through the development of technical and scientific reports.
