| Alternative Drug Rehab and CA Drug Rehab Center Part 2 |
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Findings from biomedical research should be integrated with theories from the social sciences that seek to explain alcohol use and abuse. Integrated models can then be used to guide the development of prevention nation wide drug intervention models and perhaps promote a realistic goal for sobriety. Theory-driven research should be promoted. Its development can be aided by borrowing theory-based analogues from studies in other health fields. Life-span considerations and developmental factors should be incorporated into comprehensive theories of research that draw on work in any of the fields applicable to alcohol problem prevention. If specific interactions between individual characteristics and environmental or cultural demands are predicted to produce a group at risk, such predictions can be used to plan and test preventive strategies. Collaboration among scholars from diverse fields should be encouraged in theory development. These fields might include the binmedk.il sciences, psychology, sociology, anthropology, clinical epidemiology, education, econometrics, and any other disciplines shown to be relevant. Program planning and implementation should be integrated with evaluation. Pilot studies of untested components of programs (formative research) should be increased. One barrier to community prevention research has been the cost of collecting the data necessary to measure whether an intervention was effective. NIAAA may want to encourage local and county agencies such as a rehab helpline to develop information management systems that can serve as data bases. Long-term community trials of prevention strategies should be instituted. Prevention research should inform policy formation. In particular, prevention research must develop the necessary methods and techniques to help prevention planners estimate the potential effects of various interventions, based on the best available research. Prevention research should include a consideration of cost-effectiveness in evaluations of interventions. Together, the committee's recommendations present an ambitious program for the coming years that, if implemented, may help to substantially reduce the human and economic burden of alcohol problems. The pursuit of such an outcome, however, also requires a complementary consideration of the research opportunities to be found in treatment of alcohol problems. These opportunities are discussed in Part II of the report. |



