Leveraging Existing Data to Support Large-Scale Implementation and Evaluation of Substance Use Prevention Coalitions

The goal of this roundtable is to engage researchers, evaluators, technical assistance providers, and policymakers in active dialogue about how to best partner to leverage existing data to support state-wide implementation and evaluation of substance use prevention coalitions, and to inform the broader field of prevention science. Substance use prevention coalitions have been widely promoted locally and federally as the backbone organizations needed to facilitate collective impact in a community, and achieve prevention science’s ultimate goal of evidence-based program (EBP) scale-up and public health impact. A growing body of research shows that coalitions are effective at helping local organizations successfully implement and sustain EBPs. Specific coalition models, like Communities that Care and PROSPER, have demonstrated through rigorous research trials that they also have the ability to reduce population-level youth substance use. Despite the promise of this research, the high quality, large-scale implementation of these models face several barriers. For example, rigorous evaluation and data use within the context of large-scale, multi-site prevention coalition efforts can be complex and resource intensive, and therefore are relatively rare outside of researcher-controlled studies. This is not to say that most federal and state-funded coalitions do not require substantial local data collection and evaluation efforts – however, how this data gets utilized at the local, state, and federal level is highly variable. This represents a unique opportunity to leverage existing data sources to understand how these models work in real-world contexts.

This roundtable brings together researchers, evaluators, and state agency representatives with experience in multi-sector collaborations (e.g., university-state partnerships) implementing and evaluating three different substance use prevention coalition models under natural, non-research conditions. Specifically, this session will provide a forum for discussing the challenges and opportunities for effectively and efficiently using existing data to simultaneously inform: 1) local process and outcome evaluation of these large-scale efforts, 2) technical assistance and support provided to communities implementing the coalition models, and 3) current and future evidence-based policy efforts. The chair of the roundtable will begin with a 5-minute overview of the key implementation and research challenges in the evaluation of state-wide substance use prevention efforts followed by 5-minute introductions by each panelist, including the unique perspective they offer to this discussion. The remaining hour will be used for active dialogue with the audience regarding how prevention science can inform and be informed by these state-wide coalition evaluation efforts.