Special Issue of Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy
Topic: Environmental Interventions Targeting Drug Abuse Risk and Protective Factors
Guest Editors: Karen Friend, Kristi Pettibone, Paul Florin, and Jamie Vela
Background: Illicit and prescription drug abuse, initiation and associated problems remain a critical public health issue worldwide. The World Health Organization recently reported that at least 15.3 million individuals have drug use disorders. Drug use problems are associated with significant health and social problems for both users and family members (WHO, 2013).
Unlike more traditional curricular approaches, environmental change strategies are population-based interventions that aim to change the context in which individuals make decisions (Pettibone, Friend, Nargiso, & Florin, 2012; Holder, 2002). These strategies are implemented to address public health problems such as substance abuse, HIV, and obesity and include policy, enforcement and communication campaigns. While a significant number of studies have examined a variety of environmental interventions to prevent alcohol and tobacco use and problems, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on how best to engage environmental strategies to target drug abuse and associated problems.
This special issue of Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy will examine environmental interventions targeting risk and protective factors that help to sustain or reduce drug use and associated problems. Manuscripts are encouraged to address a wide range of drugs of abuse (including illicit drugs and prescription medications), associated risk and protective factors, and innovative ways to intervene. Manuscripts should also include how to evaluate the effectiveness of these environmental interventions. Qualitative and/or quantitative approaches and a range of outcomes, including process, as well as short-, intermediate-, and long-term outcomes, can be considered.
Submission Process: Potential authors should submit a 1000 word proposal, including intervention(s) and evaluation. Guest Editors for the Special Issue will review the proposals and invite selected authors to submit a full manuscript, subject to peer review. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors, i.e., researchers, community practitioners and partners, policy makers, and students.
Submissions should be in English and proposals should clearly state the type of article proposed. We hope to include a variety of types of articles, as described in the Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy Instructions for Authors, available at the online submission portal (http://informahealthcare.com/loi/dep/).
Proposals are due by June 14, 2013. Authors will be contacted about the status of their proposal by September 6, 2013. Requested manuscripts will be due by November 15, 2013, and decisions made by January 15, 2014. If requested, revised manuscripts will be due by March 1, 2014. Final decisions will be made by May 1, 2014.
Send proposal submissions and inquiries to the Special Issue Editors: Drs. Karen Friend (kfriend@pire.org) and Dr. Kristi Pettibone (kristianna.pettibone@nih.gov). Please share this call for proposals with interested colleagues.
References
Holder, H. D. (2002). Prevention of alcohol and drug “abuse” problems at the community level: What research tells us. Substance Use and Misuse, 37(8-10), 901-921.
Levy, D. T., & Friend, K. (2001a). A computer simulation model for mass media interventions directed at tobacco use. Preventative Medicine, 32(3), 284-294.
Pettibone, K., Friend, K., Nargiso, J., & Florin, P. (2012). Evaluating environmental change strategies: Challenges and solution. American Journal of Community Psychology. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10464-012-9556-0 on January 10, 2013.
World Health Organization (2013). Management of substance abuse. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/facts/psychoactives/en/index.html on January 5 2013.