Drug Abuse Prevention

Federal Efforts to Identify Exemplary Programs Need Stronger Design Gao ID: PEMD-91-15 August 22, 1991

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.

GAO found that: (1) Education and HHS unnecessarily limited the search for successful drug abuse prevention programs by considering only those programs with a no-use approach; (2) nomination procedures for Education's Drug-Free School Recognition Program were not sufficiently systematic and comprehensive to include all interested and eligible programs and Education did not provide guidelines for the initial screening of applications; (3) Education did not clearly define evaluation criteria; (4) the procedures used to obtain data on those criteria were adequate, although sufficient data were not obtained; (5) HHS and Education review teams lacked individuals with skills in research and evaluation or in any type of scientific data analysis to interpret the applications' evaluation information; (6) the recommendations made by knowledgeable Education reviewers were subject to change by a steering committee with no additional data or formal guidance; and (7) the HHS Exemplary Program Study did not conduct site visits to validate and supplement the evidence provided in written applications, provide sufficient time to read applications, or clearly define application criteria.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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