Western > Resources > Planning and Best Practices > Step 2 > Data Collection

Data Collection

Data collection is the first phase of conducting a community assessment. At this point, data needs to be identified and assembled in order to determine how prevalent each risk factor and protective factor is in your community. It is important that you examine risk factors because this will tell you which factors are prevalent in your community that are increasing the risk that your youth will be involved in substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, youth violence, school drop-out, and delinquency. If you only examine the prevalence of a particular problem (e.g., the number of kids abusing drugs), you won't know what you can do to impact and/or prevent the problem. However, if you can figure out which risk factors (that increase the likelihood of a problem occurring) are prevalent in your community, then you can identify and implement strategies to reduce those risks and thus reduce the problem behavior. Similarly, by examining the level of protective factors that exist in your community, this will tell you how prevalent factors are which buffer the effects of risk factors.

Two kinds of data can be collected:

• Archival data, or data that already exists
• Survey data, or data that you create

Archival indicators, data that already exists, have been identified through research to enable you to determine how prevalent risk factors are in your community. Click here for the list: validated archival indicators. These are the indicators which have been shown through research to be good proxy measures for risk factors. We need archival indicators because we can't go to our local health department and look up the statistics on "family management problems" because a family management problems statistic does not exist. Consequently, we must use "proxy" measures to determine how prevalent family management problems and other risk factors are.  For sources of archival data, click here: Data.

You can also identify the prevalence of risk and protective factors in your community through surveys. This may be a preferred alternative if little archival indicator data is available to you. However, surveys can also function as a good supplement to the archival indicator data you collect. By having both archival and survey data, you can compare the two to see where differences and similarities lie. In some states, such as in Oregon and Washington, statewide school surveys are conducted regularly by state agencies. Oregon and Washington developed the survey in conjunction with Developmental Research and Programs and some other states to collect indicator data for risk and protective factors. A free copy of the Communities That Care risk and protective factor survey can be downloaded from SAMHSA's Prevention Platform.

Steps for Collecting Data:

• Identify what data is currently available for each risk and protective factor, beginning with the list of archival indicators.
• Determine which factors need additional data.  Click here for a worksheet to assist you in completing this step.
• Develop a plan to collect the additional data that is needed.  Click here for a worksheet to assist you.
• Collect that additional data.

Next Step: Analyze the Data