Session: Bridging Prevention Practice and Science At the National Level (Society for Prevention Research 21st Annual Meeting)

With two decades of strong scientific findings of efficacy and effectiveness of prevention programs across different stages of life, the field of prevention science has now identified a significant number of programs, practices, and policies that can inform prevention practice.   These programs, plus the knowledge we have gained in understanding individual, family, and community risk and protective factors, suggests an optimism that major population level reductions in drug abuse and mental disorders can be prevented.   The leading challenge for both prevention science and practice now focuses on finding improved ways to move programs into communities and host institutions.  Efforts are now underway to bring together prevention practice and prevention science in closer alignment around the challenges of implementation, recognizing their respective needs but also their mutual benefit through strengthened collaboration.  This symposium focuses on the challenges and opportunities for a merger of interests at national level.  We discuss this from three perspectives, first from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which is the major provider of substance abuse and mental health prevention programs for states, territories, tribal nations, and communities.   Secondly, we describe a model of collaboration between national prevention service delivery systems such as SAMHSA and prevention implementation researchers.  Third, we provide an ethnographic perspective on this collaborative partnership between policy makers and researchers, focusing on how the different perspectives can be integrated for mutual benefit.  This presentation will involve a dialogue to explore possible bridges across prevention practice and research.