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Project ALERT

An Evidence-Based Practice

Description

Project ALERT is a school-based prevention program for middle or junior high school students that focuses on alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and inhalant use. The program began in 1984 and is based on an approach that helps motivate young people to avoid using drugs and teaches them the skills they need to understand and resist pro-drug social influences. These influences may come from family, peers, other adults, or the media.

Originally, Project ALERT was organized into a three-month, eight-session curriculum taught during the seventh grade, followed by three "booster" sessions presented in the eighth grade that are designed to reinforce the lessons learned from earlier material. The program uses small-group activities, question-and-answer sessions, role-playing, and the practice of new skills to stimulate students' interest and participation in the ALERT curriculum. Subsequently, Project Alert was revised and strengthened. Parent involvement activities, material on alcohol misuse and a lesson to help smokers quit were added to the curriculum.

Goal / Mission

The main goals of the program are to prevent adolescent non-users from experimenting with drugs and to prevent youths who are already experimenting from becoming more regular users.

Impact

Project Alert participants were 30% less likely than other students to begin using marijuana and analyses showed that the program significantly dampened pro-drug beliefs about cigarette and marijuana use.

Results / Accomplishments

In multiple randomized control group studies, Project ALERT produced lasting outcomes for participants from a variety of ethnic and economic backgrounds who were at low, moderate, or high risk for alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana use. Analyses at the end of grade 8 (15 months after baseline) assessed students by risk level for future drug use. Among students who had tried neither cigarettes nor marijuana at the beginning of 7th grade, Project ALERT participants were nearly 50% less likely than other students to become current marijuana users by 8th grade. After incorporation of the 8th-grade booster sessions, this figure increased to more than 60%. Project ALERT participants were 30% less likely than other students to begin using marijuana. All of these findings were statistically significant (p<0.05). Analyses of program effects on attitudinal risk factors showed that Project ALERT dampened pro-drug beliefs about cigarette and marijuana use.

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
RAND Corporation
Primary Contact
Project ALERT
1776 Main St.
Santa Monica, CA 90407
800-253-7810
projectalert@rand.org
http://www.projectalert.com/
Topics
Health / Alcohol & Drug Use
Health / Adolescent Health
Organization(s)
RAND Corporation
Source
SAMHSA's National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP)
Date of publication
1993
For more details
Target Audience
Teens