Adaptation of the Communities That Care Youth Survey for use in Brazil: A pilot study.

Substance use and violence are serious problems affecting Brazilian youth, prompting local authorities to invest in adapting and implementing evidence-based prevention programs developed abroad. To ensure that interventions are effective, valid and reliable measures of risk factors for substance use and violence are needed. We conducted a pilot examination of the measurement properties of risk factors in the Communities That Care Youth Survey (CTCYS), a school-based survey developed in the United States. The Brazilian-adapted CTCYS included 25 risk factors as well as measures of substance use and antisocial behaviors. The survey was translated into Brazilian Portuguese and adapted for use in Brazil, incorporating suggestions from local experts. The survey was administered to 926 students in one Brazilian community. Results indicate that scale internal consistency was acceptable for all but two scales: (i) Academic Failure and (ii) Rebelliousness. Confirmatory factor analyses suggested good model fit for most measurement models albeit with minor modifications for most scales. Findings from this pilot study provide a foundation for the use of the CTCYS in Brazil to assess community levels of adolescent risk and evaluate prevention programs.

Assessing Community Readiness for Preventing Youth Substance Use in Colombia: A Latent Profile Analysis.

The growing use of evidence-based preventive interventions for youth substance use in Latin American countries has prompted governments, researchers, and practitioners to ask if communities are ready for implementing these interventions, especially in light of the elevated costs and long-term commitment necessary for successful implementation. This study explores the construct validity of a measure of community readiness for prevention, using confirmatory factor and latent profile analyses of 7 measures theorized to be indicators of community readiness for implementing preventive interventions for youth substance use. Data were obtained from 211 community leaders in 16 communities in Colombia. Results indicate that community readiness can be represented as a unidimensional construct with multiple profiles of varying levels of readiness. Findings suggest community readiness can be measured adequately as a latent construct and that its indicators can be used diagnostically to assess areas where readiness could be improved for better implementation of evidence-based preventive interventions.