Measuring Community Indicators: A Systems Approach to Drug and Alcohol Problems

Drug and alcohol abuse monitoring and prevention has been pushed from the national to the local and community level. How do communities go about measuring the effectiveness of their drug and alcohol abuse programs? Aimed at providing communities and researchers with the needed analytic and practical tools for assessing their programs, Measuring Community Indicators begins with a presentation of how to collect community indicator data. The authors argue that while highly aggregated national data perform a number of important research and policy functions, such data are distinct from community indicator data and are of questionable use to local policy-oriented officials. They present a theoretical perspective--developed from community systems theory--as a basis for the practical strategies outlined in the book. They then cover such topics as different community indicators, the role of community surveys in filling the gaps in available "official statistics," and specific techniques for the primary collection of community indicator data (such as geographical mapping, systems of community data acquisition, and community contact maintenance). Researchers and evaluators of substance abuse and substance abuse programs will find this book provides them with the interdisciplinary information necessary to conceptualize and measure community drug and alcohol problems.

Dr. Paul J. Gruenewald has worked as a Senior Research Scientist at Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, since 1987. His research interests focus upon studies of the social, economic and physical availability of alcohol, alcohol use and alcohol-related problems. Additional foci of his work include mathematical and statistical models of alcohol use and related problems, the development of evaluation methodologies appropriate to community-based evaluations of preventive interventions, and the environmental prevention of violence. Dr. Gruenewald is currently Scientific Director of Prevention Research Center (PRC), Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE); a research division that focuses upon developing the scientific bases for the prevention of drug and alcohol problems. He also directs the Spatial Systems Group, a coordinating center for PIRE-wide work using Geographic Information Systems, Spatial Statistical Systems, and Spatial Dynamic Models. He has been a Principal or Co-Investigator on 18 funded research projects. Dr. Gruenewald is currently Principal Investigator on three research projects funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH); a grant to study the relationships of alcohol outlets to violence among adults in California, a contract to develop mathematical ecological models of alcohol use and related problems in community settings, and an NIAAA funded Center grant to develop scientific bases for the prevention of alcohol related problems (the Environmental Approaches to Prevention Research Center). In honor of his research achievements, Dr. Gruenewald recently received a Merit Award from NIAAA to support continued studies of alcohol outlets and violence.


Andrew J. Treno received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1983. He has been at the Prevention Research Center for over 10 years. His primary area of interest is alcohol problem prevention and evaluation. He has published in the areas of community mobilization, alcohol involvement in injury, and evaluation of environmental approaches to the prevention of alcohol-related problems. He currently serves as Project Director for the Sacramento Neighborhood alcohol Prevention Project (SNAPP). In that capacity he has given numerous community presentations on the project and has successfully obtained CSAP funding in support of project interventions. He has also worked to adapt many of the evaluation instruments from the Community Trials project to the SNAPP project.