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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Stephen Gilson, PhD and Elizabeth DePoy, PhD. Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies, University of Maine, 5717 Corbett Hall, Orono, ME 04469, 207-581-1263, stephen_gilson@umit.maine.edu

In concert with the conference theme, we present the innovative methods, results and application of an inquiry that was undertaken to identify and rank specific rural communities regarding their degree of under-service by substance abuse prevention efforts, as the empirical basis for informing community-based rural prevention. Underserved rural communities were defined as those in which prevention efforts were limited and/or did not address the specific substance use patterns of the communities that they served. A multi-method design answered the following research questions:

1. What are the nature and magnitude of current prevention strategies in local rural geographic regions? 2. What are the consumption and consequence patterns in each rural region? 3. To what extent do prevention efforts address substance abuse patterns in each region? 4. What is the level of prevention readiness in each underserved community?

Existing data sets, including school substance use and forensic data, were aggregated with data collected through interviews, observation of media messages, and surveys of providers, key community members, youth, and subpopulations.

Several data analytic strategies were used including geo-coding and GIS mapping, statistical analysis of survey results, and content analysis of interviews. Visual results were presented as maps which over-laid local substance consumption and consequence data with local prevention efforts, magnitude of community coverage, and community readiness. The results rank-ordered geographic regions and subpopulations from well served to underserved and unserved and, in collaboration with the analysis of community readiness, further illuminated directions for developing and implementing rural substance abuse prevention approaches.

Learning Objectives: Participants will

• Review the literature and research support for the project;
• Discuss and analyze the methods, findings and application of the data;
• Discuss the importance of evidence-driven substance abuse prevention.

Keywords: Substance Abuse Prevention,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered