Prevention Glossary

Alternatives: A primary prevention strategy provides for the participation of target populations in activities that exclude alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. The assumption is that constructive and healthy activities offset the attraction to, or otherwise meet the needs usually filled by alcohol, tobacco and other drugs and would, therefore, minimize or obviate resort to the latter. Examples of alternatives include community service activities, social/recreational activities, and youth-adult leadership activities.

Anger Management: Exercises or techniques designed to promote youth’s ability to regulate or prevent anger or aggressive expression, and seek productive resolutions to problems.

Assertiveness Training: Exercises designed to promote youth’s ability to assert needs appropriately with others.

Behavioral Modification: Interventions that utilize principles of rewards, punishment, and/or reinforcement to facilitate behavior change.

Civic Responsibility: Teaching youth civic engagement, respect for people and property, advocacy and volunteering.

Cognitive Behavioral Strategies: Services that help youth alter their interpretation of thoughts, recognize situations in which they are most likely to use substances, and/or how to avoid and appropriately cope with those situations.

Communication Skills Training: Training on how to communicate more effectively with others.

Community-Based Process: A primary prevention strategy and practice component that aims to enhance the ability of the community to provide prevention and treatment services more effectively for alcohol, tobacco, and drug abuse disorders. Activities in this strategy include organizing, planning, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of services implementation, inter-agency collaboration, coalition building and networking. Examples of community-based process include coalition and workgroup activities, community and volunteer training, and system planning.

Community-Level Prevention: Focus on factors including the settings in which social relationships occur, such as schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. For example, living in neighborhoods with chronically high rates of disorganization, crime, and unemployment is associated with higher risk for problematic substance use.

Continuum of Care Model (Institute of Medicine): Model that defines prevention categories – Universal, Selective and Indicated. For more details on these prevention categories see Universal Prevention, Selective Prevention and Indicated Prevention below.

Connection to More Services: For individuals who have begun substance use or other risky behaviors, referral for evaluation and connection to services or treatment.

Cultural/Religious Focus: Interventions that utilize or leverage culture and/or religion in prevention programming.

Economic Availability Reduction: An environmental prevention intervention to increase prices for alcohol, tobacco, and other substances.

Education (Practice Component): Teaching youth about substance use and substance use-related issues.

Education (Primary Prevention Strategy): A primary prevention strategy that involves two-way communication and is distinguished from the Information Dissemination strategy by the fact that interaction between the educator/facilitator and the participants is the basis of its activities. Activities under this strategy aim to affect critical life and social skills, including decision-making, refusal skills, critical analysis (e.g. of media messages) and systematic judgment abilities. Examples of educational activities include group sessions for youth, community/school educational services, and mentoring.

Empirical Evidence of Impact: Evidence for a practice in one of two domains related to substance use prevention: reduced use/delayed initiation and changes in knowledge/attitudes/beliefs. SUPER describes four levels of evidence—Strong, Moderate, Promising, and Practice-Based—for practices’ prevention-related outcomes for different populations. For further details on the criteria used to determine evidence levels, see the How to Use SUPER page.

Enforce Existing Regulations: Environmental prevention initiatives that focus on enforcing existing laws, policies, and regulations that are designed to prevent youth substance use.

Environmental Prevention: A primary prevention strategy that establishes or changes written and unwritten community standards, codes and attitudes, thereby influencing incidence and prevalence of the abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs used in the general population. This strategy is divided into two subcategories to permit distinction between activities which center on legal and regulatory initiatives and those which relate to the service and action-oriented initiatives. Examples of environmental prevention include promotion and enforcement of effective alcohol, drug, and tobacco use policies, modification of advertising practices, and product pricing strategies.

Goal-Setting: Explicit selection of a life goal for the youth to work towards.

Indicated Prevention: Services/activities for high-risk individuals who are identified as having minimal but detectable signs or symptoms that foreshadow a behavioral health disorder, as well as biological markers that indicate a predisposition in a person for such a disorder but who does not meet diagnostic criteria at the time of the intervention. Indicated prevention includes services for individuals who are identified (or individually screened) as having an increased vulnerability for a behavioral health disorder based on some individual assessment but who are currently asymptomatic. Examples of indicated prevention include driving under the influence education programs and programs for youth who face disciplinary issues related to substance use at school.

Individual-Level Prevention: Focus on factors that are specific to the individual, such as age, education, income, health, and psychosocial problems that may correspond with substance use. For example, youth who exhibit poor self-regulation, impaired control, and impulsiveness are more likely to engage in binge alcohol use.

Information Dissemination: A primary prevention strategy that provides awareness and knowledge of the nature and extent of alcohol, tobacco and drug use, abuse and addiction and their effects on individuals, families, and communities. It also provides knowledge and awareness of available prevention programs and services. Information dissemination is characterized by one-way communication from the source to the audience, with limited contact between the two. Examples of information dissemination include media campaigns, community and school outreach events, and the development of printed materials or websites.

Insight-Building: Activities specifically designed to help youth achieve greater self-understanding.

Media Campaigns: Environmental prevention utilizing media and public awareness activities to inform the general population about the health risks associated with substance use.

Motivational Enhancement: Discussions that utilize reflective listening, open-ended strategies, and comparisons of behavior to normative standards.

Parenting Education/Skills: Services that enhance parent supportiveness, communication, involvement in youths’ lives, monitoring, and supervision, including drug education and practice developing and enforcing family policies on substance use.

Peer Norm Development: Establishment of peer norms against the use of alcohol and other drugs.

Peer-Led Approaches: Have youth design and lead prevention activities.

Population of Focus: A group with specific characteristics is considered a population of focus on SUPER if an intervention was specifically designed for use with a group, been adapted to make it particularly well-suited for use with a group, or has been implemented widely when serving a group. SUPER populations of focus are American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, LGBTQI+, Military Families, Students in College, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, Persons Experiencing Homelessness, Other Underserved Racial and Ethnic Minorities, and Rural.

Practice Components: Elements that are commonly used in prevention evidence-based practices, community-defined evidence practices, and other prevention services to form a comprehensive prevention approach that fosters meaningful change.

Primary Prevention Strategies: Six approaches to substance use prevention: information dissemination, education, alternatives, problem identification and referral, community-based processes, and environmental. For more details on each of these strategies, see Alternatives, Community-Based Process, Education (Primary Prevention Strategy), Environmental Prevention and Information Dissemination above, and Problem Identification and Referral below.

Pro-Social Connections and Activities: Engagement in fun and positive activities without use of substances and fostering pro-social relationships.

Problem Identification and Referral: A primary prevention strategy that aims at identification of those who have indulged in illegal/age-inappropriate use of tobacco or alcohol and those individuals who have indulged in the first use of illicit drugs to assess if their behavior can be reversed through education. It should be noted, however, that this strategy does not include any activity designed to determine if a person needs treatment. Examples of problem identification and referral include student assistance programs, driving while under the influence/driving while intoxicated education programs, and brief interventions.

Problem Solving: Training in the use of techniques, discussions, or activities designed to bring about solutions to targeted problems.

Promotion/Media Restrictions: Environmental prevention focused on mitigating, or counteracting advertisements, discounts and/or sponsorships that promote alcohol, tobacco, and other substance use.

Protective Factors: Conditions in youth’s lives that make them less likely to use alcohol, tobacco, or illicit drugs.

Psychoeducation: Discussion focused on handling day-to-day life issues that may directly or indirectly impact substance use.

Relationship-Level Prevention: Focus on factors including close social circles—family members, peers, teachers, and other close relationships—that contribute to youth’s range of experience and may influence their behavior. For example, youth who spend time with peers who believe cannabis use is beneficial and not harmful are more likely to use cannabis.

Relaxation: Techniques or exercises designed to induce psychological calming.

Retail Availability Reduction: Environmental prevention focused on reducing youth access to alcohol, tobacco, and other substances in locations such as stores, restaurants/bars, and online marketplaces.

Risk Factors: Conditions in youth’s lives that make them more likely to use alcohol, tobacco, or illicit drugs.

Selective Prevention: Services/activities for individuals or a subgroup of the population whose risk of developing behavioral health disorders are significantly higher than average. The risk may be imminent or it may be a lifetime risk. Risk groups may be identified on the basis of biological, psychological, or social risk factors that are known to be associated with the onset of a disorder. Those risk factors may be at the individual level for non-behavioral characteristics (e.g., biological characteristics such as low birth weight), at the family level (e.g., children with a family history of substance abuse but who do not have any history of use), or at the community/population level (e.g., schools or neighborhoods in high poverty areas). Selective prevention refers to strategies for subpopulations identified as being at an elevated risk for developing a behavioral health disorder. Examples of selective prevention include programs for children of parents with substance use disorders and programs for families who live in high-crime or low-income neighborhoods.

Self-Efficacy/Self-Esteem Enhancement: Techniques and training to enhance self-confidence and improve self-efficacy.

Self-Monitoring: Repeated measurement of a target index by youth.

Shifting Community Norms: Environmental prevention that focuses on changing general attitudes concerning the acceptability or unacceptability of substance use.

Skills Training: Help youth develop skills to avoid or delay substance use (e.g. self control), as well as information, training, and feedback to improve interpersonal communication.

Social Availability Reduction: Environmental strategies to prevent youth from procuring alcohol, tobacco, and other substances through sources outside of retail markets, such as family, friends, and other acquaintances.

Society-Level Prevention: Focus on prevention-related factors that social and cultural norms, social drivers of health, and educational and social policies that contribute to economic and/or social inequalities or lack of opportunities.

Socio-Ecological Model: Model describing four levels—the individual, relationship, community, and society—that influence each other and may impact youth substance use behavior. For more details on each of these levels see Community-Level Prevention, Individual-Level Prevention, Relationship-Level Prevention and Society-Level Prevention above.

Support Networking: Strategies to explicitly identify, engage, develop, or otherwise increase the involvement or effectiveness of individuals in the youth’s life.

Universal Prevention: Services/activities for the general public or a whole population group that has not been identified on the basis of individual risk. Universal prevention includes strategies that can be offered to the full population, based on the evidence that it is likely to provide some benefit to all (reduce the probability of disorder), which clearly outweighs the costs and risks of negative consequences. There are two main types of universal prevention: universal direct prevention and universal indirect prevention. Examples of universal direct programs include school prevention curricula, after-school programs, and parenting classes. Examples of universal indirect programs include those focused on establishing alcohol, tobacco, and other drug policies and modifying advertising practices.

Universal Direct Prevention: Prevention where service recipients are present and not receiving primary prevention services based on individual risk. Examples of universal direct programs include school prevention curricula, after-school programs, and parenting classes. For more information on Universal Direct Prevention see Universal Prevention above.

Universal Indirect Prevention: Prevention where service recipients are not present and services support the capacity building and awareness for the entire population. Examples of universal indirect programs include those focused on establishing alcohol, tobacco, and other drug policies and modifying advertising practices. For more information on Universal Direct Prevention see Universal Prevention above.