From risk-and-protective models to resiliency training, researchers have developed a number of alcohol and other drug prevention models that have proven effective under controlled conditions. Yet all too often these models are either not used or applied incorrectly in the field, leading to poor program results.

Hoping to bridge the gap between the lab and real life, the RAND Corporation recently released a Web-based manual dedicated to closing the gap between "the positive outcomes often achieved by prevention science and the lack of these outcomes by prevention practice at the local level."

Getting to Outcomes 2004 (GTO-04) lays out a user-friendly 10-step process for planning, implementing, and evaluating any prevention model or approach. Developers of the manual say the best-practices oriented manual also can serve as the framework for entire prevention systems.

Abe Wandersman, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of South Carolina and one of the authors of GTO-04, draws a distinction between traditional program evaluation -- which usually asks the question "what happened?" after the fact -- to the approach taken in GTO-04, which he calls "empowerment evaluation."

"The goal is to increase the probability of achieving results by helping practitioners and communities learn to plan more systematically, implement programs with quality, and self-evaluate," he told Join Together.

With funders ratcheting up demands for proven outcomes, "coalitions need to find a way to show they have results, and that means going through a process that leads to results," said Wandersman. Tamara Henry-Kurtz, director of the Syracuse/Onondaga (NY) Drug and Alcohol Commission, agrees. "Every [community anti-drug coalition] in the U.S. is going to need to achieve positive, measurable outcomes," she said. "We need to weed out the bad and empower the good."

To help bridge the gap between research and practice, GTO 2004 takes the leading prevention research and synthesizes it into easy-to-read chapters that help users answer 10 key questions:

1. What are the needs and resources in my organization/school/community/state?
2. What are our goals, target populations, and desired outcomes?
3. How does our program incorporate knowledge of science and best practices?
4. How does our program fit in with other existing programs?
5. What capabilities do we need to put a quality program in place?
6. How will the program be carried out?
7. How will implementation quality be assessed?
8. How well did the program work?
9. How will continuous quality improvement strategies be incorporated?
10. If the program works, how will it be sustained?

GTO 2004 is designed to be nonlinear, meaning that groups can work with the model regardless of where they are in their own planning life-cycle. "Thanks to the circular nature of the design, you can start where you are and fill in the blanks," said Pamela White, director of the Nashville Prevention Partnership. "You don't have to start from scratch, and we're gradually bringing the manual online with all that we are doing."

Programs need not even "work" every step: some have simply cherry-picked the evaluation components outlined in questions 6 through 8, although the developers say that the more closely programs follow the manual, the better their outcomes are likely to be.

Henry-Kurtz said that using the GTO 2004 manual has led to important changes in her coalition, particularly in the area of media literacy. White is using the manual to evaluate her youth coalition and other projects and called it "a fabulous cookbook for someone who's never done [outcomes evaluation] before."

Xiaoyan Zhang, Ph.D., of KIT Solutions is developing an interactive web-based version of the manual called iGTO. Zhang describes it as a "daily tool" that allows users to track their progress in real time, gather data, and scale outcomes evaluation to meet the needs of their programs. RAND is consulting on the project.

Users of the manual also can get paid technical assistance to agencies, communities, schools, or coalitions through a company called Action Research Associates.

"Getting to Outcomes 2004: Promoting Accountability through Methods and Tools for Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation" can be downloaded for free from the RAND website, and the developers are working with the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment to disseminate the manual to local prevention leaders.

The manual also was the focus of a session at Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America's National Leadership Forum XIV, held in January in Washington, D.C.