Drug Free Community Coalition Successes in Opioid Misuse and Abuse Prevention

SESSION INTRODUCTION: Drug Free Communities is a grant program administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This session will cover the work on one DFC grantee located in the heart of an opioid epidemic. It will address the evaluation work, the sectors involved, and the means by which components were utilized to successfully lower the incidence of opioid use. It will include example of quantitative and qualitative data gathering, analyses, and the application of lessons taken from the community prevention evaluation.

ABSTRACT BODY: More than 10 million Americans are currently misusing prescription opioids and this use of leading to an increased use of non-prescription opioids. In 2016, Kentucky was one of the five states with the highest rates of overdose deaths (33.5 per 100,000).

One county in Kentucky is witnessing a reversal of these statewide numbers. Carter County recent saw a drop in opioid use in its high schools across the board. DFC grantees are trained in the use of the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF). This presentation/ poster will address the evaluation of the work in Carter County and will speak to the data points by which its success is determined.

Methods: This was a mixed-methods study using ten years of data from the Annual Survey of Coalitions, the Drug Free Communities national evaluation, the local evaluation work of the coalition, and key informant interviews with representatives from 8 different sectors in the community. Survey data was analyzed using multivariate regression models with results linked to indicators identified in nationwide coalition training. Qualitative data was analyzed using a grounded theory method.

Results: The number of Carter County students who reported using prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes in the past year dropped from 13% in 2004 to 1% in 2012, with reported painkiller misuse decreasing from 4% to 0%. Past year use among 12th graders decreased from 23% in to 5%, with nonmedical painkiller use dropping from 12% to 2%. The training of the coalition was connected to coalition multi-sector participation, and directly to the outcomes in successful prevention activities.

Conclusions: We illustrate how prevention coalitions, as a part of the national Drug Free Communities programs are trained and how one has achieved successful outcomes in opioid misuse and abuse prevention.