| Popis: |
Since the increase in youth drug use in the 1960s and 1970s, prevention research has matured by adapting theories and models from fields, such as public health, psychology, mental health, sociology, neuroscience, and education, and shaped them through research and practice into a coherent set of approaches to helping young people make healthy decisions and life style choices. Prevention science emerged as a new field through this process and through interplay among politicians, researchers, educators, and concerned citizens, who stimulated each other to advance an infrastructure to support curricula, programs, and activities designed to reduce risk-taking behaviors and trajectories leading to negative health outcomes. Several decades of program development and implementation as well as primary research, program evaluation, and translational research have led to a refinement of the understanding of the etiology of risky behaviors, underlying theories of behavior change, and strategies to prevent or delay onset of risky behavior and to increase positive health choices. As a result of this work, structures within local, state and federal governments, communities, universities, advocacy groups, private foundations, and professional organizations have grown to support a variety of prevention activities. |
