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My organization wants to assess the current substance abuse-related needs of our community. Can you help me identify existing surveys that are available to use for this purpose?

Communities that Care Survey
The Communities that Care (CTC) survey was developed to provide scientifically sound information to communities on the prevalence of risk and protective factors among youth. Risk and protective factors are characteristics of the school, community, family environments, and individual characteristics of the students’ themselves, that are known to predict drug use, delinquency, and gang involvement among youth (Hawkins, Catalano and Miller, 1992). Besides measuring risk and protective factors, the CTC survey also assesses the current prevalence of these problem behaviors in the community. There are a total of 18 risk factors and 10 protective factors measured in the CTC Survey. Some of the risk factors are broad enough that they require two separate survey scales for adequate measurement. As a result, 25 separate risk factor scales are used to measure the 18 risk factors.

The current survey was developed based on normative data collected from over 72,000 students (6th through 12th grade students) participating in statewide surveys in Kansas, Maine, Oregon, South Carolina, and Washington. The surveys were conducted between 1994 and 1997.

Sources:
Channing Bete Company:
http://www.channing-bete.com/positiveyouth/pages/CTCYS/CTCYS.htmlLouisiana Department of Health and Hospitals: http://www.dhh.state.la.us/offices/?ID=23 Hawkins JD, Catalano RF, Miller JY. (1992). Risk and protective factors for alcohol and other drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood: implications for substance abuse prevention. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1):64-105.

Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors Survey
The Search Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors (A&B) provides baseline aggregate data on which to develop asset-building strategies and positive new visions for the youth in a community. The A&B survey provides an overview of the developmental assets, indicators, deficits, and risk behaviors of 6th- to 12th-grade youth. The survey has also been used to assist state and local educators in monitoring indicators related to student well-being; set priorities and strategies for programs and services; provide a common framework for cross-sector collaboration; provide data for grant writing and reports to funding agencies; and provide a “youth voice” in organizational and community planning.


The A&B survey was created in 1989 and measured 30 developmental assets. In 1996, the framework was expanded to 40 developmental assets, on the basis of analysis of Search Institute’s own aggregate data on more than 250,000 students who took the original 30-asset survey from 1989-1994, additional synthesis of child and adolescent research, as well as conversations with researchers and practitioners.

Source: http://www.search-institute.org/.

American Drug and Alcohol Survey
The American Drug and Alcohol Survey (ADAS), developed by Rocky Mountain Behavioral Science Institute (RMBSI), provides information to help school districts and communities understand the nature and extent of local substance use. Survey results can help agencies assess community needs, evaluate prevention programs, identify trends in substance use over time, and provide the data required to write grant proposals, and inspire others to get involved in substance use prevention.

The survey is a classroom-based paper-pencil questionnaire that asks about the students’ experience with a variety of drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. It also asks questions about student attitudes about substance use, including their perception of the harmfulness of drugs, their intention to use in the future, how easy it would be to obtain drugs, peer influences to use drugs, and whether they would try to stop their friends from using or have friends who would try to stop them. Procedures are used that carefully protect students’ anonymity.

Two versions of the ADAS are available: the "Adolescent" version is intended for students from 6th to 12th grade, while the "Children’s" version was designed for elementary school students in 4th to 6th grades. The Adolescent version has a 6th grade reading level, and the Children’s version has a 4th grade reading level.

Source: http://www.rmbsi.com/.

Pride Survey
The Pride Survey is used by schools to identify student levels of drug use, violence and other behaviors. The survey captures data required by the 2002 HR1 education bill, which calls on schools to report on "incidence and prevalence, age of onset, perception of health risk, and perception of social disapproval of drug use and violence by youth," and has been designated by federal law as a measure of illicit drug use by youth. Since 1982, the survey has been used by more than 8,000 school systems across the nation. Conducting the survey takes between 25 to 30 minutes. Once the survey is completed it is sent to PRIDE where it is analyzed. The analysis is then presented in a report. The data, however, belongs to the school system, and all data is maintained confidential.

The survey measures changes in student behavior over time, allowing an individual school, system, or state to measure many of their goals and objectives. In addition, it allows schools to match their data against the PRIDE Surveys national database.

Source: http://www.pridesurveys.com/index.html.

Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System
The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) was developed in 1990 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor priority health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death, disability, and social problems among youth and adults in the United States. These behaviors, often established during childhood and early adolescence, include tobacco use, unhealthy dietary behaviors, inadequate physical activity, alcohol and other drug use, among others.

The YRBSS includes national, state, and local school-based surveys of representative samples of 9th through 12th grade students. These surveys are conducted every two years, usually during the spring semester. The national survey, conducted by CDC, provides data representative of high school students in public and private schools in the United States. The state and local surveys, conducted by departments of health and education, provide data representative of the state or local school district.

CDC provides funding and technical support to states, territories, and major cities to conduct a Youth Risk Behavior Survey. With technical assistance from CDC, sites can add or delete questions in the core questionnaire to better meet the interests and needs of the state, territory, or city school district. CDC’s technical assistance includes training for state and local coordinators, specialized software to guide states in selecting schools and classes, help with applying survey results to improve school health programs and policies. School-based surveys were last conducted in 2001 among students in grades 9–12 in 38 states, 19 large cities, and 7 territories. The average sample size of the surveys was 1,819 students.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dash/yrbs/


More Resources:

FAQ: Collecting local sources of data http://www.captus.samhsa.gov/northeast/resources//faq/faq32.cfm