New Guide for Prevention Professionals on College and University Campuses

Prevention with Purpose: A Strategic Planning Guide for Preventing Drug Misuse Among College Students, is now available on Campus Drug Prevention!

For many of the 15.8 million students enrolled at America’s two- and four-year degree programs each year, the university experience promotes academic growth, fosters new friendships, and expands understanding of a world outside the home environment.

Unfortunately, the college years are also a time when students may experiment with drugs for the first time.

Drug use remains, for many college health and wellness professionals, an individual issue, despite emerging evidence that the college environment contributes to the initiation of drug use for the majority of college drug users.

College is the ideal setting for innovative, campus-wide programming aimed at preventing and reducing drug use among college students, but these efforts remain few and far between.

This revised guide, titled Prevention with Purpose: A Strategic Planning Guide for Preventing Drug Misuse Among College Students, is intended to bridge that gap, by providing a roadmap for college- and university-based prevention professionals to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders, from students to administrators, to address campus-wide drug misuse issues.

In this 2024 edition of the guide – first published in 2020 – you will find updated data, profiles highlighting real-life stories from campus prevention professionals focused on a unique or innovative approach to the Strategic Prevention Framework, ideas for building considerations of cultural factors into each step of the SPF, and five strategies for success during times of disruption to campus life.