Research Project and Findings Regarding Youth Substance Use in the Community
The Prevention Team contracted with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) to conduct a community needs assessment to better understand the factors that influence youth substance use in the community.
MAPC collected data through focus groups and key informant interviews and aggregated data from available data sets such as the Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the Lahey Community Health Needs Assessment. The following report presents key findings and recommendations from this research project. The research supports the State Opioid Response-Prevention in Early Childhood (SOR-PEC) grant, with the goal of better understanding and addressing substance use prevention in 9-11 year olds in Gloucester, MA. The work was guided by the following two research questions:
- What are the risk and protective factors for substance use prevention in 9-11-year-olds in Gloucester, MA?
- Incorporating the risk and protective factors, what are possible interventions to reduce the risk of substance use?
Using a mixed-methods research approach, MAPC produced this report to highlight the research findings that address the overall goals and questions of the research. The results can hopefully be used to better understand the landscape of substance use and design programming to address it.
