During the next Prevention Talk we will be addressing the following question: How do we in the prevention community need to adapt evidence-based interventions to fit different prevention delivery systems and contexts? Prevention scientists have developed many efficacious preventive interventions in a variety of areas. Despite the demonstrated effectiveness of many evidence-based preventive interventions (EBPIs), two pervasive problems limiting their widespread use are: (a) low rates of adoption, and (b) limited sustainability. Dr. Felipe Gonzalez Castro (College of Nursing and Health Innovation at Arizona State University) and his team conducted the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsored study of the adaptation, adoption, and sustainability of evidence-based drug prevention interventions, middle school principals and teachers from low-income rural communities in areas of high opiate use were interviewed. These educators reported some of the major barriers to adoption which will be highlighted during the talk. From an ecological (ecosystemic) framework, it is clear that one important factor for improving intervention utilization involves: (a) optimizing the preventive intervention via design adaptations (a micro-level approach) that facilitate its dissemination and implementation (D&I) in diverse local communities. Nonetheless, increasing preventive intervention rates of adoption and their sustainability will require coordinated action on two other factors: (b) local community engagement (a meso-level approach) for greater demands from community residents for these interventions, and (c) advocacy with legislators to enact policies and legislation (a macro-level approach) that encourage and provide financial and political support for the widespread adoption and sustainability of these preventive interventions. A common theme in both of these higher ecological factors involves promoting a culture of prevention. During this Prevention Talk, Dr. Castro will elaborate on these three factors from this multi-level eco systemic framework, from how activating these multi-level factors will require coordinated actions at all three levels, to creating a synergistic effect that will initiate and sustain these effects and produce significant changes on targeted outcomes, to advance health equity and reduce health disparities.

With the major research breakthroughs over the past 30 years in understanding how to prevent risky behaviors and the most effective prevention interventions for doing so, the ability to deliver these evidence-based (EB) interventions and policies to communities remains a challenge to both the research and practice communities. This Prevention Talk will discuss some of the emerging science that is looking at effective implementation and dissemination approaches to EB prevention. It will describe efforts involved in scaling up, i.e., having prevention professionals provide EB interventions to their target populations, and scaling out, i.e., to have these EB prevention interventions incorporated into existing health and social services in the community. Dr. C. Hendricks Brown from Northwestern University will talk about these concepts and the developing conceptual frameworks that will help the field move forward to improve implementation in any of these service contexts. He will also examine the continuing challenges faced by both researchers and practitioners as they work to bring the most effective prevention services into community practice. Speaker Bio Dr. C. Hendricks Brown is Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Preventive Medicine and Medical Social Sciences at the Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine. He also holds adjunct appointments in the Departments of Biostatistics and Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as well as the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami. Brown directs the NIDA funded Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology (Ce-PIM) for Drug Abuse and HIV and co-directs the CDC Chicago Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence. He directs Northwestern's Bridges Program, which develops and applies methods to foster partnerships among community, service delivery, and research, expressly addressing health and promoting equity. His work has focused on the prevention of drug abuse, conduct disorder, and depression, and particularly the prevention of suicide. He has a strong interest in developing new methodology for producing generalized knowledge about behavioral interventions, including developing innovative research designs for effectiveness, conducting mediational analyses, designing and carrying out implementation trials and modeling the effects of implementation strategies. He has published extensively on methods for conducting group-based randomized trials and methods to improve implementation research. Brown cochairs the National Academy of Sciences Forum on Promoting Children's Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health and serves on numerous federal panels, advisory boards, and editorial boards.

June 10, 2021 Prevention campaigns are often seen as the answer to addressing substance use in the community. They are visible, wide reaching, and often meet the requirement to “do something about the substance use problem!” But just as often, campaigns can fail to produce the outcomes that are needed. APSI has invited Dr. William Crano of Claremont Graduate University and a member of APSI’s Science Advisory Board, to discuss a model called EQUIP, which is designed to help prevention and communications practitioners develop the most effective and persuasive messages. Strong messaging is important today to those of us working in prevention because of the wide array of media that are now deployed to reach populations at risk. Our communication efforts need to be based on a strong message that can be adapted to the appropriate channels for reaching the audience where it is. Dr. Crano will present the model and explain how its elements, namely, Engage, Question, Inform, Undermine, and Persuade--EQUIP, can be used to guide the development of effective and persuasive messages. Susan David, APSI Vice President, will join Dr. Crano in discussing some of the challenges in developing campaigns based on her experience in developing and evaluating campaigns at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

May 6, 2021 The pathways to substance use and violent behavior often represent similar trajectories for many young people; so it is not so surprising that research has shown that evidence-based interventions are often successful at preventing both behavioral problems. To explore these successful interventions and other work related to violence prevention, APSI has invited Bobbi Beale, PsyD and Daniel J. Flannery, PhD from Case Western Reserve University to join the next Prevention Talk and discuss their work and research at the Begun Center for Violence Prevention and Research. During this Prevention Talk, you will hear about the community approach employed by the Begun Center to promote social justice and community development and focus their research on the causes of violence prevention. They will also discuss their approach to training different actors in the community such as social workers, teachers, law enforcement and other professionals, on the principles of effective violence prevention.

Youth suicide rates have increased approximately 40% over the past decade. There is a growing focus on the importance of upstream development of healthy networks and social connection to significantly reduce suicides. Both the most recent US Surgeon General’s call to action for national suicide prevention, and the CDC’s key strategies for suicide prevention emphasize the need for prevention work to move upstream, to create protective environments, and to promote connectedness; with the CDC specifically highlighting programs that target peer norms. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief the importance of healthy social connections, and the many challenges that come when these connections are disrupted. We invite you to this prevention talk to engage with the team from the University of Rochester, including Peter A Wyman (Academic Chief in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division at the University of Rochester School of Medicine), PhD, Bryan Yates, BA (Senior Program Manager) and Chelsea Keller-Elliott, MS, LMFT (Senior Program Manager), around how Network Health Interventions can be used to prevent suicidal behaviors and associated risk factors including depression. This team has utilized analysis of peer networks and youth-adult networks to create a Network Health Diffusion Model for suicide prevention. They will describe two network-informed suicide prevention programs: Sources of Strength, which trains key opinion leaders within secondary schools to spread health in their schools; and Wingman-Connect, a group training for new Air Force trainees. This talk will describe and provide examples of how these 2 programs utilize network science mechanisms to effectively and efficiently bring prevention upstream and promote the growth of resilience at a population level. The University of Rochester team is also excited to share about their successes promoting social connection during the COVID-19 pandemic, and ideas for other prevention professionals to consider when undertaking this work during times of social distancing and beyond.

Growing a professional prevention workforce is a longstanding and evolving challenge. The recent articulation of a science foundation to prevention planning and programming has highlighted the need to establish the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to deliver highly effective prevention to communities around the world. Although there has been great progress in gaining recognition for professionalizing the field of prevention, there has been a long history of barriers to overcome. The limited recognition of prevention as a career option and a deficit in degree programs focused on prevention science and practice create early disadvantages. Furthermore, once professionals are working in the field, salary limitations, inadequate supervision, and limited advancement opportunities impede individual and systems development. Limited diversity within the prevention workforce and a lack of cognizance of prevention expertise and prevention credentials among other professionals, organizations, and communities create barriers, as well. Despite these challenges, prevention is increasingly valued among many systems, stakeholders, and communities, and younger populations’ increased exposure to prevention in recent years are promising signs for workforce development. We invite you to this Prevention Talk to engage in dialogue about workforce development. The February 11 Prevention Talk features Tracy Flinn, Ed.D., Senior Research Analyst, National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, Inc. (NASADAD), Sandra Del Sesto, M.ED., ACPS, Delegate to and former Co-chair of the Prevention Committee of the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium, member of the Advisory Boards of the Latino PTTC and the National PTTC, and Julie Stevens, MPS, ACPS, ICPS, Board Member of the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium and Advisor to the Prevention Committee, Member of the Advisory Board of the National PTTC, Adjunct Professor, University of Oklahoma’s Masters of Prevention Science degree, and, Jim Ryan, APSI’s Director of Training, who will moderate the panel. Join us for an invigorating conversation on prevention workforce development.