NIDA has identified the need to make best practices in drug abuse prevention available to the widest possible number of people. Nowhere is that more important than in preventing the use of alcohol and drugs by adolescents. Adolescent drug use is tied to school failure, interpersonal violence, risky social behavior, including injury and unsafe sexual activity, and addiction. This proposal is to evaluate the content of an existing research-based CD-ROM prevention program, relate for teens, to modify it for Internet delivery, and then evaluate its effectiveness in changing norms about drugs, developing assertiveness skills and actually reducing drug use. Relate for teens is an award-winning, research-based and tested, interactive CD-ROM-based prevention program. In Phase I, Ripple Effects will have an Expert Panel evaluate the existing relate for teens CD-ROM content for concurrence with best practices, survey program facilitators to determine time constraints for prevention programming, modify content accordingly, build a web prototype of a drug abuse prevention program, and evaluate its effectiveness and feasibility for Phase II expansion. In Phase III if feasibility is proven, Ripple Effects will complete the Internet substance abuse prevention product for adolescents, and further evaluate it for effectiveness.
