An experimental evaluation of community organizing and media to increase parental monitoring and limit setting is proposed. Parental monitoring and limit setting are important influences on the development of early adolescent substance use and most other problem behaviors. Media to encourage parents to monitor what their children are doing and to set and enforce clear rules about their behavior could increase the prevalence of effective levels of these parenting practices, yet such an intervention has not be evaluated. Similarly, community organizing holds promise for assisting communities in implementing programs and policies to increase supervision of youth and parents' monitoring and limit setting. However, systematic empirical studies of such an intervention are lacking. The proposed work involves a multiple baseline design in which repeated assessments of parenting practices and youth behavior are obtained in three communities and the community organizing and media intervention is introduced in one community at a time. Samples of high risk middle school youth and their families will be assessed quarterly through phone interviews. Community leaders and organization representatives will also be assessed quarterly. In addition, data will be obtained from all middle school youth in relevant grade cohorts annually. Data from parents will also be collected at these times. Parenting practices and youth behavior will be assessed via multiple methods and multiple sources in order to form psychometrically appropriate measures of constructs. In addition to providing evidence about the effects of the intervention, the study provides an important opportunity to test a model of the influences of parenting practices on the development of youthful substance use and other problem behaviors, using Latent Growth Modeling and related techniques.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01DA009306-01
Application #
2122449
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (SRCD (16))
Project Start
1995-03-15
Project End
2000-02-29
Budget Start
1995-03-15
Budget End
1996-02-29
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
1995
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Oregon Research Institute
Department
Type
DUNS #
053615423
City
Eugene
State
OR
Country
United States
Zip Code
97403
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Irvine, A B; Biglan, A; Smolkowski, K et al. (1999) The effectiveness of a parenting skills program for parents of middle school students in small communities. J Consult Clin Psychol 67:811-25
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Li, F; Harmer, P; Duncan, T E et al. (1998) Confirmatory factor analysis of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire with cross-validation. Res Q Exerc Sport 69:276-83
Biglan, A (1995) Translating what we know about the context of antisocial behavior into a lower prevalence of such behavior. J Appl Behav Anal 28:479-92