Thursday, November 21, 2024
11/21/2024
Substance misuse and abuse are significant public health challenges for young African American adults, ages 18 - 25. To reduce the onset and progression of substance misuse and its related problems, the Substance Abuse Resources and Disability Issues (SARDI) program in the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University will partner with the administrations at Central State University (CSU) and Wilberforce University, two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) located in Greene County Ohio, to create the Leading Efforts to Advance Prevention (LEAP) project. The chief academic officers (i.e., the Provosts) at these two HBCUs will serve as co-investigators (Co-Is) on this LEAP project with SARDI leadership, prevention, and evaluation staff. This project will be guided by SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) to build and strengthen community-level prevention capacity to address substance use and mental health concerns in African American students ages 18 – 25 on both campuses whose populations are primarily Black, indigenous or people of color (CSU = 73% and Wilberforce = 99%). LEAP will integrate infrastructure development and capacity building, direct prevention services, and environmental/community strategies to impact individual behavior, as well as community risk perceptions that influence norms, behavior, and health practices. The goals of the LEAP project align with the five steps of the SPF process: 1) complete the Assessment step of the SPF process, identifying prevention priorities on each campus; 2) complete the Capacity Building step, in order to develop a successful prevention program on each campus; 3) complete the Planning step, including development of an implementation plan and a strategic prevention plan; 4) complete the Implementation step, delivering prevention services on the CSU and Wilberforce campuses; and 5) complete the Evaluation step, establishing a rapid-cycle quality improvement process for the prevention programming on each campus. To implement the SPF process, SARDI staff and Co-Is will identify a LEAP team of 10-12 members from CSU and Wilberforce University, including 5-6 administrators, faculty leaders, and student leaders from each institution. The LEAP team, led by SARDI and Co-Is, will use the SPF to identify and address up to three data driven community substance misuse prevention or mental health promotion priorities. Once the priorities are identified, the LEAP team will select appropriate evidence-based programming based on the needs of the target population, and then implement and evaluate the programs starting by the end of month 6 of the project. The LEAP project will provide a number of different strategies in order to complete the SPF process and implement services to impact community and individual change. A minimum of 350 African American students will receive direct prevention interventions in the form of curriculum education sessions. The project will also implement a media campaign that will include both social media and print media reaching over 9,700 students total (2,200 with social media and 7,500 with print media). Peer Advocates from each HBCU will be selected to create 16 role model stories, and the role model stories and other prevention messages will be distributed to 1,600 peers on both campuses. To measure community change, a preliminary Needs Assessment will be conducted with 300 students in Year 1 with follow-up assessments with an additional 300 students in each of Years 3 and 5. SARDI’s 30 years of experience in prevention education, curriculum design, assessing community needs, and evaluation give us, along with our partnering HBCUs, the capacity and expertise to successfully meet the goals of this important LEAP project.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
