Strategic prevention framework

Practitioners often feel an urgent need to implement immediate solutions to the pressing substance misuse problems facing their communities. But research and experience have shown that prevention must begin with an understanding of these complex behavioral health problems within their complex environmental contexts; only then can communities establish and implement effective plans to address substance misuse.
To facilitate this understanding, SAMHSA developed the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF). The five steps and two guiding principles of the SPF offer prevention practitioners a comprehensive approach to understanding and addressing the substance misuse and related behavioral health problems facing their communities, and to developing and sustaining programs and practices that reduce behavioral health inequities. (author description)