This study assessed the outcomes of adapting the culturally-grounded, middle school, substance-use prevention intervention, "keepin' it REAL" ("kiR"), to target elementary school students and to address acculturation. At the beginning of 5th grade, 29 schools were randomly assigned to conditions obtained by crossing grade of implementation (5th,…

We present the short-term results of a quasi-experimental evaluation of the revised D. A. R. E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) curriculum. Study outcomes examined were D. A. R. E.'s effects on three substances, namely students' lifetime and 30-day use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, as well as their school attendance and academic…

In the Fall of 2004, 1,948 5th grade students from Phoenix, AZ enrolled in an evaluation of a school-based, substance use prevention intervention. To assess the consistency of Mexican and Mexican-American students' self-reports of lifetime substance use, the present study analyzed data reported by 1,418 students who reported Mexican ancestry and…

This study assessed the immediate and short-term outcomes of adapting a culturally-grounded middle school program, "keepin' it REAL", for elementary school students. After curriculum adaptation, 10 schools were randomly assigned to the intervention in 5th grade with follow-up boosters in 6th grade; 13 schools were randomly assigned to the control…

This article describes the implementation of an innovative curriculum called Drugs-At-Work (DAW), which was evaluated in three phases. In phase-one, data collected after the third year of the study suggested that the curriculum had a significant impact on the fifth-grade participants, who in turn influenced their sixth-grade classmates the…

Drug and alcohol use among youth remains pervasively high, but students are receiving less school-based prevention. Infusing health information into core curricula may be a valuable prevention approach. Therefore, behavior change theory was used to develop a science education curriculum on drugs for fourth- and fifth-grade students, which was then…