Mechanisms which are utilized to transfer drug abuse prevention information to practitioners, policy makers, and the public in a timely and comprehensible manner are currently less than adequate. This current initiative is designed to study the stages of diffusion (i.e., awareness, adoption/adaptation, implementation and institutionalization) in order to increase the capacity of the research field to disseminate prevention research findings to the community-at-large in an effective and efficient manner. The purpose of the Phase I contact is to create a prevention dissemination effort with a variety of interrelated research functions relative to the prevention of drug abuse. the primary purpose would be to conduct research to determine the most effective strategies for research dissemination. Toward this end, the contractor would; compile the findings from existing mutli-disciplinary Drug Abuse Prevention Research Centers and individual researchers, nationally and inter- nationally; serve as a dissemination research mechanism and present prevention research findings to the scientific and general community via development of peer-review publications, monographs, web sites, videos, 1-800 numbers, etc.; and establish direct linkages with representative community agencies to promote communication of prevention research findings and enhance the capacity of professionals in the field of drug abuse prevention to better integrate new advances, technologies, and theory into intervention programming via training, technical assistance, and program development. In Phase II, a variety of controlled studies of different research dissemination mechanisms involving print and electronic communications would be conducted.
