Substance Abuse Prevention

This research develops a needs assessment for a community in relation to substance abuse prevention. The community is a section of a major urban area. The community is the Central Area of Seattle. Cocaine is the substance at issue for which a need for abuse prevention is assessed. The target population of the needs assessment is the 13 to 18 year old age group residing within the community boundaries.

Geographic Definition of the Community

The Central Area of the City of Seattle is located to the east of downtown Seattle. The Central Area is bounded on the north by Olive Street, on the south by Jackson Street, on the east by 22nd Avenue, and on the west by Boren Avenue.

The needs assessment is structured within the framework of the framework provided in the Community Health Assessment Tool (Burgess and Ragland, 1989, p. 174). The components of this framework are as follows:

1. Health perceptionhealth management pattern: protective services; morbidity and mortality statistics; and health resources.

2. Nutritionalmetabolic pattern: nutritional programs; food availability; and nutritional education.

3. Elimination pattern: sanitation; and ecological concerns.

4. Activityexercise pattern: transportation; and recreation and fitness.

5. Sleeprest pattern: business activity; and industrial activity.

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, as a public issue, experienced a metamorphosis in the mid1960s, in which the American governmental establishment transformed the use of cocaine from a public safety issue to a public health issue. Data pertaining to the dangers to public safety posed by cocaine use were emerging in the 1960s which eroded the federal government's position visavis cocaine use; therefore, rather than accept a factual repudiation of its arguments, government redefined the issue in within the context of public health. In its metamorphosis from a public safety to a public health issue, the governmental establishment in the United States now portrays the cocaine user as an emotionally unstable individual with a psychological dependency on the drug. Within the American medical community, there is a wide division on this sweeping characterization; however, the characterization remains official government health policy towards cocaine use (Hamowy, 1988, p. 57). Medical experts generally distinguish between experimental use and chronic use, and between use and abuse. American public health policy toward cocaine makes no such distinctions. In this policy, use is abuse. The perceptions of appropriateness f
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3842
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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