Drug Abuse Prevention: Federal Efforts to Identify Exemplary Programs Need Stronger Design

Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the policies and methods used by the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to identify exemplary drug abuse prevention programs.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected	Recommendation	Status
Department of Education	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that the policies of the recognition efforts be revised to allow consideration of the full variety of prevention strategies commonly used in schools and other agencies. This may involve consideration of programs that do not adhere to a strict no-use approach towards alcohol or tobacco for adults and youths over age 15. An intermediate step may be to conduct evaluations on the relative merits of no-use and responsible-use approaches, which could provide evidence that supports the current restriction. In addition, application materials should be revised to encourage the submission of applications by programs featuring a broader range of those prevention strategies that the literature suggests hold promise of success.	Closed – Not Implemented The agency disagrees strongly with GAO and no change is likely in the near future.
Department of Health and Human Services	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that the policies of the recognition efforts be revised to allow consideration of the full variety of prevention strategies commonly used in schools and other agencies. This may involve consideration of programs that do not adhere to a strict no-use approach towards alcohol or tobacco for adults and youths over age 15. An intermediate step may be to conduct evaluations on the relative merits of no-use and responsible-use approaches, which could provide evidence that supports the current restriction. In addition, application materials should be revised to encourage the submission of applications by programs featuring a broader range of those prevention strategies that the literature suggests hold promise of success.	Closed – Not Implemented The agency disagrees strongly with GAO and no change is likely in the near future.
Department of Education	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that the recognition efforts be open to all interested applicants through a more comprehensive and systematic call for applications. The nominations procedures need not be abandoned altogether; rather, they should be restructured to ensure equal opportunity for nomination to all eligible programs.	Closed – Implemented Education expanded its methods of soliciting nominations.
Department of Health and Human Services	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that the recognition efforts be open to all interested applicants through a more comprehensive and systematic call for applications. The nominations procedures need not be abandoned altogether; rather, they should be restructured to ensure equal opportunity for nomination to all eligible programs.	Closed – Implemented HHS expanded its methods for soliciting nominations.
Department of Education	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that the Drug-Free School Recognition Program add to each review team, and the Exemplary Program Study add to the review panel, at least one and two members, respectively, who have backgrounds in social science evaluation or research methodology that enable them to conduct skillful analyses of effectiveness evidence.	Closed – Implemented Additional reviewers are being used with the recommended expertise.
Department of Health and Human Services	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that the Drug-Free School Recognition Program add to each review team, and the Exemplary Program Study add to the review panel, at least one and two members, respectively, who have backgrounds in social science evaluation or research methodology that enable them to conduct skillful analyses of effectiveness evidence.	Closed – Implemented Review panel membership was expanded to include recommended expertise.
Department of Education	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that application criteria be revised to improve their clarity, and standards of evidence should be established for each.	Closed – Implemented Education has revised the review criteria.
Department of Health and Human Services	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that application criteria be revised to improve their clarity, and standards of evidence should be established for each.	Closed – Implemented HHS has revised the recognition review criteria.
Department of Education	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that applicants be required to submit data demonstrating program effectiveness in order to be considered for recognition. To emphasize to applicants the importance of effectiveness evidence, the application materials should include a separate section that requires applicants to provide specific (preferably quantitative) evidence of effectiveness.	Closed – Implemented Education is requiring evidence of effectiveness as part of the application.
Department of Health and Human Services	The Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services should require that applicants be required to submit data demonstrating program effectiveness in order to be considered for recognition. To emphasize to applicants the importance of effectiveness evidence, the application materials should include a separate section that requires applicants to provide specific (preferably quantitative) evidence of effectiveness.	Closed – Implemented HHS is requiring evidence of effectiveness from finalists in the competition.
Department of Education	The Secretary of Education should eliminate the current veto power held by the Department of Education Steering Committee and only permit that group to send back recommendations for further review, perhaps with the addition of specific questions to be addressed by the knowledgeable reviewers.	Closed – Implemented Education has dropped the steering committee altogether.
Department of Health and Human Services	The Secretary of Health and Human Services should expand the Exemplary Program Study data collection design to include site visits.	Closed – Not Implemented HHS agrees with the recommendation that site visits would be beneficial but does not have adequate funds to carry out the visits.
Department of Health and Human Services	The Secretary of Health and Human Services should expand the review panel schedule to include a period of training and more time for reading and panel discussion of applications. One way to allow panel members to consider more data would be to subdivide the work among several smaller teams, as is done in the Drug-Free School Recognition Program. A smaller work load would permit all members of a team to read the full set of applications to be evaluated. Teams would then have sufficient time to review the evidence under each application criterion, rather than simply select points.	Closed – Implemented HHS has changed the procedures to permit adequate advance review.

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Health Care

Data collectionSubstance abuseEducation program evaluationElementary educationEligibility criteriaEvaluation criteriaEvaluation methodsPublic schoolsSecondary educationDrug abuse prevention