Bridging the Gap: Research Informing Practice and Policy for Healthy Youth Behavior

The Foundation's Bridging the Gap: Research Informing Practice for Healthy Youth Behavior Program was designed to improve the understanding of the role of policy and environmental factors in youth alcohol, illicit drug, and tobacco use, as well as diet and physical activity to evaluate their effectiveness in reducing substance use and obesity among youth. The purpose of this project is to direct and coordinate a multicomponent project designed to monitor trends in youth substance use and abuse, as well as trends in the state- and community-level environmental factors that affect youth alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use. The major activities to be conducted are: (1) The development/enhancement of three state-level databases--one each for alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs--containing information on policies and other factors related to use, measures of use and abuse, and measures of the harms associated with use and abuse. (2) The identification and review of community-level databases containing information on the determinants of use, use and abuse, and the harms associated with ATOD use, and the construction of community-level databases on these factors for the communities contained in the Monitoring the Future Surveys (MTFS). (3) The collection of community-level data on the environment related to ATOD in the MTFS and "rapid response" communities. (4) Liaison with the Institute for Social Research with respect to the enhancement of the MTFS and the conduct of surveys in the "rapid response" communities. (5) The analysis of community-level and merged state, community, and enhanced MTFS databases to gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of alternative strategies to reduce youth ATOD use and abuse.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $13,467,454.00

Awarded on: 10/31/1997

Time frame: 11/1/1997 - 5/31/2004

Grant Number: 33009