Community‐Based Prevention Support: Using the Interactive Systems Framework to Facilitate Grassroots Evidenced‐Based Substance Abuse Prevention

Abstract

The community plays an important role in the success of substance abuse prevention efforts. However, current funding structures and a focus on limited approaches to prevention delivery have created a large gap between what substance abuse prevention professionals practice and what the community at large knows about prevention. The concept of "community" has not always been well-defined in the field of prevention, and there are few mechanisms to engage grassroots community members in evidence-based substance abuse prevention. This article explains how Wandersman et al.'s (Am J Community Psychol 41:171-181, 2008) Interactive Systems Framework can be applied to grassroots prevention efforts. The authors describe a Community Prevention Support System that collaborates with the Professional Prevention Support System to promote the adoption of evidence-based substance abuse prevention practices at the grassroots, community level.

Selling Innovations Like Soap: The Interactive Systems Framework and Social Marketing

“…Given its comprehensive and multi‐stakeholder approach, the Interactive Systems Framework has been widely utilized as a guide for the effective dissemination and implementation of various types of innovations within complex community systems (Flaspohler, Lesesne, et al., ; Noonan et al., ; Tabak et al., ). The ISF has been applied to efforts addressing issues like violence prevention (Wandersman et al., ), substance abuse (Firesheets, Francis, Barnum, & Rolf, ; Florin et al., ; Livet, Courser, & Wandersman, ), cancer prevention and control (Fernández et al., ; Rapkin et al., ), mental health (Flaspohler, Anderson‐Butcher, & Wandersman, ; Gregory et al., ), teen pregnancy prevention (Lesesne et al., ; Ray, Wilson, Wandersman, Meyers, & Katz, ), and chronic diseases and disabilities prevention/management (Lane et al., ; Nápoles, Santoyo‐Olsson, & Stewart, ). Given the complexity of such problems, the ISF has proved to be a useful tool in identifying and addressing relevant system perspectives, influences, and actions related to the dissemination and implementation of supportive interventions and research evidence.…”

“…While these articles do offer some useful discussion and direction for the PSTS, to be discussed later in this paper, it is challenging to find applications or examinations of the ISF that focus solely on the PSTS (see Lewis et al., ; Thigpen, Puddy, Singer, & Hall, for exceptions). In contrast, literature providing a sole concentration on either the PDS and/or the PSS, without addressing the PSTS, is more readily available (e.g., Firesheets et al., ; Halgunseth et al., ; Hunter, Paddock, Ebener, Burkhart, & Chinman, ; Zeldin, Petrokubi, & MacNeil, ).…”

“…First, because the literature primarily focuses on the factors that influence implementation within the PDS and PSS, the key factors within the PSTS that influence dissemination remain generally undefined. In the ISF literature, these factors that influence the success of a particular system in the D/I process are often referred to in terms of “capacity,” although researchers have also explored these concepts as readiness (Flaspohler, Meehan, Maras, & Keller, ), community conditions (Firesheets et al., ), or simply organizational context (Livet et al., ). Factors that influence the implementation process within the PDS or PSS span constructs related to providers, communities and surrounding supports, or innovations themselves.…”

“…Factors that influence the implementation process within the PDS or PSS span constructs related to providers, communities and surrounding supports, or innovations themselves. Examples include innovation compatibility (Hunter et al., ), organizational collaboration and communication (Livet et al., ), or resource connections across the community (Firesheets et al., ). Flaspohler, Meehan, et al.…”

Active involved community partnerships: co-creating implementation infrastructure for getting to and sustaining social impact

“…Beyond a focus on cultural fit of the program [8][9][10][11], broader attention to community engagement and partnering in the process of implementation can strengthen what we know as core factors essential for getting research into real-world practice [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Community participation and engagement in implementation research and practice are not a new concept, per se [18][19][20][21][22][23], and can range along a continuum from more passive forms of consultation and ongoing feedback to collaboration and more active roles in decision making [24].…”