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This article describes a Web-based therapeutic workplace intervention designed to promote heroin and cocaine abstinence and train and employ participants as data entry operators. Patients are paid to participate in training and then to perform data entry jobs in a therapeutic workplace business. Salary is linked to abstinence by requiring patients to provide drug-free urine samples to gain access to the workplace. Prior data show that a prototype of the intervention could promote drug abstinence. Preliminary data on the Web-based intervention suggest that it should be able to teach adults with histories of chronic unemployment and drug addiction to become skilled data entry operators in about 3 to 6 months. Early experience in the business provides preliminary evidence that it might become financially successful. The therapeutic workplace intervention may serve as an effective and practical long-term treatment for chronic unemployment and heroin and cocaine addiction.

We developed an interactive, customizable, Web-based program focused on the prevention of HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and hepatitis among youth. Results from a randomized, controlled trial with youth in treatment for substance use demonstrated that this Web-based tool, when provided as an adjunct to an educator-delivered prevention intervention, increased accurate prevention knowledge, increased intentions to carefully choose partners, and was perceived as significantly more useful relative to the educator-delivered intervention when provided alone. Results suggest this Web-based program may be effective and engaging and may increase the adoption of effective HIV and disease prevention science for youth. Limitations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of several interactive, computer-based substance abuse-prevention and -treatment interventions that we have developed for adolescents, including an interactive substance abuse-prevention multimedia program for middle school-aged youth and a customizable program focused on prevention of HIV, hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infections among youth in substance abuse treatment. The content in these programs is grounded in a scientific understanding of the types of skills and information that are critical to effective prevention. The programs also use several evidence-based informational technologies that have been shown to be critical in effectively training key skills and information. Our evaluations to date have underscored the effectiveness of these programs in producing desired health-behavior change. Applying information technologies to the delivery of science-based interventions may allow for unique opportunities to provide widespread dissemination of cost-effective interventions with consistency and in a manner that is engaging and acceptable to youth.