| Best Practices - Introduction |
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INTRODUCTION, continued
What is environmentally focused substance use prevention?
Environmentally focused prevention is based on the view that substance abuse does not occur in isolation or in a vacuum. It holds that individuals engage in substance use not just because of personal choice, but also because they have been strongly influenced by factors in the environment. These factors allow substances to be easily accessible and convey the message that substance use is a desirable, common, or harmless activity. Consequently, substance use is a reflection of the real and complex interaction between individuals and the influences in their environment, and effective youth substance use prevention requires changes in that broader environment (Holder 1999). In her overview of the environmental prevention approach, Fisher (1999) also identifies three goals of environmental strategies: (1) limiting access to substances; (2) changing the culture and contexts in which individuals choose to engage in use; and (3) reducing the negative consequences resulting from use.
The environmentally focused prevention approach follows the classic public health model of host-agent-environment. The host refers to the individual suffering the public health problem, and the agent is that item which may cause harm to the host. The environment consists of the social, economic, physical, political, and cultural settings in which the host and agent interact. Environmental strategies seek to change the context in which the agent and host operate so there is either no interaction or the interaction does not cause harm. It assumes that enduring changes in the environment can reduce a public health problem even for those who do not participate in individual-oriented interventions because something about the physical, policy, or social environment people live in has been positively changed or modified.
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