A community prevention model to prevent children from inhaling and ingesting harmful legal products

Children's misuse of harmful legal products (HLPs), including inhaling or ingesting everyday household products, prescription drugs, and over-the-counter drugs, constitutes a serious health problem for American society. This article presents a community prevention model (CPM) focusing on this problem among pre and early adolescents. The model, consisting of a community mobilization strategy and environmental strategies targeting homes, schools, and retail outlets, is designed to increase community readiness and reduce the availability of HLPs, which is hypothesized to reduce HLPs use among children. The CPM is being tested in Alaskan rural communities as part of an inprogress eight-year National Institute on Drug Abuse randomized-controlled trial. This paper presents the CPM conceptual framework, describes the model, and highlights community participation, challenges, and lessons learned from implementation of the model over a 21-month period.

► Children's misuse of harmful legal products (HLPs) to get high is a serious health problem.
► We describe a Community Prevention Model (CPM) to increase community readiness and reduce availability and use of HLPs.
► The CPM includes community mobilization and environmental strategies targeting homes, schools, and retail outlets.
► The CPM is being tested in rural Alaskan communities in a National Institute on Drug Abuse randomized-controlled trial.
► Challenges and lessons learned from implementation of the model over 21 months are highlighted.