Introduces the concept of community readiness for substance abuse prevention programming. Defines community readiness, provides a rationale for assessing a community's readiness prior to the planning or implementation of prevention activities, identifies seven factors for assessing community readiness, and offers strategies for increasing readiness factors found to be deficient. Case study. Intended for use with the handbook "Drug Abuse Prevention: What Works" and "Drug Abuse Prevention and Community Readiness: Training Facilitator's Manual."

Shows how to create a comprehensive, community-wide prevention program to effectively confront the serious drug and alcohol problems threatening our youth. Shows how to employ community mobilization, educational strategies, volunteerism, and mass media to achieve significant reductions in adolescent drug use.

Contains a 9-hour, modular training curriculum, designed for use by training facilitators in introducing prevention practitioners and community members to the basic theory of drug abuse prevention and 3 prevention strategies. Provides the skills to assess and increase the readiness of a community to launch a prevention effort. Includes talking points for lectures, instructions for conducting discussions and exercises, and handouts. An overview of the program addresses the learning objectives, intended audience, methods for use, time and organization, class size, trainer qualifications, training aids, room and equip. requirements, and resources.

This wide-ranging handbook brings together experts in the sociology of drug abuse prevention. Providing a comprehensive overview of the accumulated knowledge on prevention theory, intervention design, and development and prevention research methodology, this work also promotes prevention science as an evolving field in the practice and policy of drug abuse prevention.

Now in its fifth edition, Diffusion of Innovations is a classic work on the spread of new ideas. In this renowned book, Everett M. Rogers, professor and chair of the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico, explains how new ideas spread via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. To overcome this uncertainty, most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances—a process which typically takes months or years. But there are exceptions: use of the Internet in the 1990s, for example, may have spread more rapidly than any other innovation in the history of humankind. Furthermore, the Internet is changing the very nature of diffusion by decreasing the importance of physical distance between people. The fifth edition addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas.

The prevalence of childhood obesity is so high in the United States that it may reduce the life expectancy of today's generation of children. While parents and other adult caregivers play a fundamental role in teaching children about healthy behaviors, even the most positive efforts can be undermined by local environments that are poorly suited to supporting healthy behaviors. For example, many communities lack ready sources of healthy food choices, such as supermarkets and grocery stores. Or they may not provide safe places for children to walk or play. In such communities, even the most motivated child or adolescent may find it difficult to act in healthy ways. Local governments-with jurisdiction over many aspects of land use, food marketing, community planning, transportation, health and nutrition programs, and other community issues-are ideally positioned to promote behaviors that will help children and adolescents reach and maintain healthy weights. Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity presents a number of recommendations that touch on the vital role of government actions on all levels-federal, state, and local-in childhood obesity prevention. The book offers healthy eating and physical activity strategies for local governments to consider, making it an excellent resource for mayors, managers, commissioners, council members, county board members, and administrators.