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The Minnesota Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) Plus project augmented the DARE curriculum with community, parent involvement, and extracurricular activity components. Of the 24 schools in the DARE Plus project, the 8 receiving the DARE Plus intervention are examined in this study. The association of participation in the extracurricular activities component of the DARE Plus project with adolescent substance use is investigated. The intervention targeted the class of 2005 from seventh to eighth grade (1999-2001). As part of the intervention, students participated in extracurricular activities planned by peer leaders, and annual surveys measured substance use and psychosocial outcomes. After 2 years students overall and boys participating in extracurricular activities had significantly less alcohol use and fewer intentions to use alcohol than did nonparticipants. Asian American participants had significantly less tobacco use and fewer intentions to use tobacco compared with nonparticipants. The results suggest an association between extracurricular activity participation in DARE Plus and lower rates of substance use, especially among boys, and suggest that such participation can be helpful for youth of varying ethnicities. Further research is needed to more rigorously evaluate this association using an experimental design. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

The purpose of this paper is to outline the evaluation plan for the Minnesota D.A.R.E. Plus Project, a drug and violence prevention program for young adolescents, and to present the results of psychometric analyses on the measures that will be used in the assessment of the intervention program. The survey instrument was tested using different samples for each stage of its development. The main scale development sample included seventh grade students in urban, suburban and rural schools. The results indicate that the scales constructed are reliable and valid measures of young adolescents' drug use and violent behaviors, as well as intrapersonal, social, and environmental factors related to those behaviors.

The objectives of this study were to examine outcomes of the Minnesota D.A.R.E. Plus Project on violence-related behaviors among middle school students and mediation analyses that test how the intervention was effective in reducing physical and verbal violence. Twenty-four schools were randomly assigned to the D.A.R.E. middle school curriculum, the D.A.R.E. Plus multicomponent intervention, or control. The study cohort completed a self-report questionnaire at baseline and two follow-ups. The results showed that boys had higher rates of violence and victimization than girls. The D.A.R.E. Plus program was more effective in preventing violence among boys than among girls. It appears that the small behavioral effect that D.A.R.E. Plus did demonstrate on physical and verbal violence among boys was entirely mediated by a decrease of norms that support violence, an increase in outcome expectancies about being violence-free, and an increase in parental consequences for fighting. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)

Describes Minnesota DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) PLUS, a randomized trial of 24 schools and communities. During 1999-2001, students in eight schools will receive the DARE curriculum in 7th grade. Eight other schools will receive the curriculum plus additional parent involvement, peer leadership, and community components in 7th and 8th grades. Eight other schools will be controls. (SM)

Objective: To evaluate the effect of the middle and junior high school Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) and D.A.R.E. Plus programs on drug use and violence. Design: Randomized controlled trial of 24 schools, with 3 conditions: D.A.R.E. only, D.A.R.E. Plus, and delayed program control. Setting: Schools and neighborhoods, primarily in Minneapolis–St Paul. Participants: All seventh-grade students in 24 schools in the academic year 1999-2000 (N = 6237 at baseline, 67.3% were white, and there was 84.0% retention at final follow-up). Interventions: The middle and junior high school D.A.R.E. curriculum in the 16 schools that received D.A.R.E. only and D.A.R.E. Plus. In the 8 schoolts that received D.A.R.E. Plus, additional components included a peer-led parental involvement classroom program called "On the VERGE," youth-led extracurricular activities, community adult action teams, and postcard mailings to parents. The interventions were implemented during 2 school years, when the cohort was in the seventh and eighth grades. Main Outcome Measures: Self-reported tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use; multidrug use; violence; and victimization, assessed at the beginning and end of seventh grade and at the end of eighth grade. Growth curve analytic methods were used to assess changes over time by condition. Results: There were no significant differences between D.A.R.E. only and the controls; significant differences among boys between D.A.R.E. Plus and controls for tobacco, alcohol, and multidrug use and victimization; significant differences among boys between D.A.R.E. Plus and D.A.R.E. only in tobacco use and violence; and no significant behavioral differences among girls. Conclusion: D.A.R.E. Plus significantly enhanced the effectiveness of the D.A.R.E. curriculum among boys and was more effective than the delayed program controls, underscoring the potential for multiyear, multicomponent prevention programs and demonstrating sex differences in response... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Project Northland was a randomized trial to reduce alcohol use among adolescents in 24 school districts in northeastern Minnesota. Phase 1 (1991-1994), when the targeted cohort was in grades 6-8, included school curricula, parent involvement, peer leadership and community task forces. The Interim Phase (1994-1996) involved minimal intervention. Phase 2 (1996-1998), when the cohort was in grades 11 and 12, included a classroom curriculum, parent education, print media, youth development and community organizing. Outcomes of these interventions were assessed by annual student surveys from 1991 to 1998, alcohol purchase attempts by young-looking buyers in 1991, 1994 and 1998, and parent telephone surveys in 1996 and 1998. Growth curve analysis was used to examine the student survey data over time. Project Northland was most successful when the students were young adolescents. The lack of intervention in the Interim Phase when the students were in grades 9 and 10 had a significant and negative impact on alcohol use. The intervention used with the high school students as those in grades 11 and 12 made a positive impact on their tendency to use alcohol use, binge drinking and ability to obtain alcohol. There was no impact in Phase 2 on other student-level behavioral and psychosocial factors. Developmentally appropriate, multi-component, community-wide programs throughout adolescence appear to be needed to reduce alcohol use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Project Northland is an efficacy trial with the goal of preventing or reducing alcohol use among young adolescents by using a multilevel, communitywide approach. Methods. Conducted in 24 school districts and adjacent communities in northeastern Minnesota since 1991, the intervention targets the class of 1998 (sixth-grade students in 1991) and has been implemented for 3 school years (1991 to 1994). The intervention consists of social-behavioral curricula in schools, peer leadership, parental involvement/education, and communitywide task force activities. Annual surveys of the class of 1998 measure alcohol use, tobacco use, and psychosocial factors. Results. At the end of 3 years, students in the intervention school districts report less onset and prevalence of alcohol use than students in the reference districts. The differences were particularly notable among those who were nonusers at baseline. Conclusions. The results of Project Northland suggest that multilevel, targeted prevention programs for young adolescents are effective in reducing alcohol use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationships between alcohol-related informal social control and parental monitoring on alcohol use, behavior and intentions; violent behavior; and delinquent behavior in a racially diverse population of young urban adolescents. Baseline surveys were administered to 6th grade male and female students in 61 urban Chicago schools as part of Project Northland Chicago, a group randomized trial for the prevention/reduction of substance use. A subset of their parents (n = 3,034) was also surveyed regarding alcohol use, violence, and delinquency and related issues. Structural equation modeling was used to assess relationships between alcohol-related informal social control (as measured by parental perceptions of neighborhood action regarding youth drinking) and parental monitoring (as reported by parents), and three adolescent outcomes (alcohol use, behaviors and intentions; violent behavior; and delinquent behavior; as reported by teens). Associations between alcohol-related informal social control and parental monitoring were positive and significant (P < .001). Direct paths from parental monitoring to all three adolescent outcomes were negative and statistically significant (alcohol use, behaviors and intentions, P < .001; violent behavior, P < .001; and delinquent behavior, P < .001). Alcohol-related informal social control was not significantly associated with adolescent outcomes. Efforts to engage parents to be more active in monitoring adolescents' activities may be related to lower levels of underage drinking, violence and delinquency among both female and male urban youth. Neighborhood norms and action against teenage drinking may be too distal to adolescent outcomes to be directly associated.

Project Northland was a randomized community trial to prevent or delay alcohol use among adolescents. Students in the intervention communities were exposed to a multi-component prevention program in early adolescence and high school. This paper examines the impact of Project Northland on the trajectories of four scales of the adolescent form of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-A). Students in the intervention communities demonstrated lower rates of growth of family problems and alcohol/drug use proneness than students in the delayed-program control communities. The results were more robust for baseline non-drinkers. EDITORS' STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS: This experimental study extends the scope of the impact of Project Northland, already recognized as a model substance abuse prevention program by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The results suggest that focused prevention programs have the potential to impact young adolescents' lives more broadly. Replication and further examination of the mechanisms by which risk factors and outcomes are modified is necessary, but school administrators and public health officials could learn from this promising program and evaluation.

This paper presents the results of a post hoc component analysis designed to tease apart the effects of different intervention strategies used in Project Northland, a group-randomized, community-wide, multi-level intervention trial originally conducted in the 1990's to prevent and reduce alcohol use among a cohort of mainly White students in rural Minnesota. This study focuses on Phase I, when students were in 6th-8th grade. The intervention during this phase included five components: classroom curricula, peer leadership, youth-driven/led extra-curricular activities, parent involvement programs, and community activism. Student exposure to/participation in these components was followed over time using reliable process measures. These measures were used as time-varying covariates in growth curve analyses to estimate the effects of the intervention components over time. Multi-item scales from annually-administered student surveys were used to measure relevant outcome variables, like alcohol use. The impact of the components appears to have been differential. The strongest effects were documented for the planners of extra-curricular activities and parent program components. The classroom curricula proved moderately effective, but no effects were associated with differential levels of community activism. The interactions tested here did not provide support for synergistic effects between selected intervention components. Care must be taken when selecting and combining intervention strategies meant to reduce adolescent alcohol use.

The objectives of this study were to examine outcomes of the Minnesota D.A.R.E. Plus Project on violence-related behaviors among middle school students and mediation analyses that test how the intervention was effective in reducing physical and verbal violence. Twenty-four schools were randomly assigned to the D.A.R.E. middle school curriculum, the D.A.R.E. Plus multicomponent intervention, or control. The study cohort completed a self-report questionnaire at baseline and two follow-ups. The results showed that boys had higher rates of violence and victimization than girls. The D.A.R.E. Plus program was more effective in preventing violence among boys than among girls. It appears that the small behavioral effect that D.A.R.E. Plus did demonstrate on physical and verbal violence among boys was entirely mediated by a decrease of norms that support violence, an increase in outcome expectancies about being violence-free, and an increase in parental consequences for fighting.

Purpose: This study examines the relationship between smoking-related parental, family, and home factors with adolescents' cigarette use., Design: Cross-sectional surveys of adolescents, via a self-administered questionnaire in classrooms, and their parents, via a telephone interview, were conducted., Setting: Fifteen suburban and rural communities within Minnesota., Subjects: The study sample included 8th, 9th, and 10th grade public school students and their parents., Measures: The dependent variable was monthly tobacco use among students. The independent measures were parental, family, and home smoking-related characteristics. There were 1343 parent-child dyads with completed surveys., Results: The final, multivariate logistic regression model found the following variables to be independently related to higher smoking rates among adolescents: child's grade (odds ratio [OR] = 3.03 for 10th vs. 8th), parents' permissiveness of adult smoking (OR = 1.80), parents' having higher normative estimates of how many people smoke (OR = 1.70), parents' decreased likelihood of punishing their teenager for smoking (OR = 1.65), smoking by an adult living in the home (OR = 1.99), and sibling smoking (OR = 8.95). Lack of communication about consequences for breaking family smoking rules was associated with lower smoking rates among adolescents (OR = .49)., Conclusion: The results of this study highlight the importance of parental smoking norms and attitudes and smoking role models in the home. It is important that smoking prevention strategies target and include the entire family. Limitations of the study are its cross-sectional design and that the sample was primarily white.

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to investigate how well Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) predicted frequency of consumption of fruits and vegetables among seventh graders and to investigate whether gender or socioeconomic status (SES) had moderating effects on the relationships between the constructs in the model., Design: Two identical self-administered paper and pencil surveys were distributed 6 months apart. Path analyses of the TPB models by gender and SES were performed with AMOS software., Setting: The study occurred in eight middle schools from school districts in the Minneapolis--St. Paul metropolitan area, where a minimum of 20% of the students qualified for free or reduced-price meals., Subjects: Of the invited seventh graders, 1406 (74%) completed data for the model constructs at baseline and for behavior at interim data collection., Measures: We assessed frequency of consumption of fruits and vegetables and attitudes, subjective norms, barriers, and intentions related to this behavior. Three levels of SES were created based on questions about free lunch, parents' education, and work., Results: No significant direct effects of attitudes and subjective norms on behavior were found, but for barriers, both indirect effects through intentions and direct effects on behavior were significant. Seven percent of the variation in the frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption and 31% of the variation in intention to eat more fruits and vegetables were explained by the model. Gender appeared to have moderating effects on the relationships between attitudes and intention and between intentions and behavior in the model. There were no moderator effects of SES, but the larger dropout rates from the low-SES group could have caused the groups to become more homogeneous., Conclusion: The data fit the model well; still, large proportions of the variance in the frequency of consumption of fruits and vegetables were unexplained. This may be related to the operationalization of the model constructs or to missing important factors in the model. Furthermore, there appeared to be strong relationships between subjective norms or barriers and intentions as well as gender differences in the strengths of the relationships in the model that may have implications for intervention methods or messages.