Environmental Change Strategies for ATOD Prevention: Bridging Fidelity and Outcomes

Grantees funded through the Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant initiative (SPF SIG) by SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) were encouraged to implement environmental change strategies--population-based interventions that aim to change the environment or context in which individuals make decisions about using alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. The extent to which these programs or strategies are implemented as designed (implementation fidelity) is considered necessary for achieving outcomes (Fixsen et al, 2004; Longhi et al., 2005; Pentz et al., 1990; Hansen et al., 1991; Domitrovich and Greenberg, 2000; Tobler and Stratton, 1997). The SPF SIG cross-site evaluation team developed an Environmental Strategies Implementation Guide that provided guidelines and measures for assessing implementing fidelity for 21 environmental change strategies, focusing on substance abuse prevention addressing policy, enforcement, and media/communication activities. Data submitted by grantees were analyzed to assess the relationship between measures of implementation fidelity (e.g., how many sobriety checkpoints were conducted), and changes in outcome measures (e.g., drunk driving fatalities or ATOD use). The proposed presentation reports both the utility of the implementation fidelity measures and the degree to which environmental change strategy implementation fidelity is related to consumption and consequence outcomes.