Stephen R Shamblen

Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation | PIRE · Louisville Center

BACKGROUND We analyzed data from a study to evaluate the effectiveness of the Relationships Under Construction (RUC) sexual risk avoidance education program promoting positive youth development and healthy relationships. METHODS Twelve schools in the Midwestern region of the United States randomized to the intervention implemented RUC in health or...

Background: Meditation, including Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI), is a required Complementary and Integrative Health intervention at the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Training VA clinicians to provide MBI at scale must address fidelity concerns and the assessment of clinician competency. Objective: The psychometric properties of...

Background Adolescents who dual use ENDS with tobacco cigarettes are more likely to have an increased risk of developing dependence. Yet, little is understood about the factors driving dual use among adolescents. The current study sought to reveal the day-to-day socio-temporal contextual and community factors associated with adolescents’ use of ele...

Objectives As the demand for Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) expands, there is a growing need for training healthcare professionals to deliver these interventions. To meet this demand, VA CALM (Veterans Affairs – Compassionate Awareness Learning Module) was developed and evaluated. Methods Participants (n = 74, female = 73%) were a national...

Research on youth use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) has explored the correlates of initiation and use; however, little is known about the factors that predict continued youth use of ENDS. We used an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) burst design to explore both daily variability within adolescents over a two-week observation pe...

Background Adolescents who dual use ENDS with tobacco cigarettes are more likely to have an increased risk of developing dependence. Yet, little is understood about the factors driving dual use among adolescents. The current study sought to reveal the day-to-day contextual and community factors associated with adolescents’ use of electronic nicotin...

Drug use remains a pervasive problem in Afghanistan, where high levels of opium production, poverty, and war have contributed to this problem. A probability sample of 32 Afghan drug treatment centers (DTC) trained in and implementing the Universal Treatment Curriculum (UTC; basic curriculum) were selected. The UTC basic curriculum consists of eight...

Objective: Adolescents are more likely than young adults to use electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), yet most of what is known is concluded from young adult ENDS use as young adults are easier to survey. Additionally, while evidence about the prevalence and trends of adolescent ENDS use comes from cross-sectional studies, ecological moment...

Individuals with gambling disorder (GD) experience a host of negative psychosocial and physical health outcomes, yet few seek treatment. Of particular concern are individuals with co-occurring mental and behavioral health disorders, a group at higher risk for GD in the state of Ohio. To better serve this population, the Ohio Department of Mental He...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a common feature in the lives of incarcerated women returning to rural communities, enhancing their risk of mental ill-health, substance use, and recidivism. Women’s experiences of IPV intersect with challenges across multiple social–ecological levels, including risky or criminalizing interpersonal relationships,...

Drug use rates among adults in Afghanistan are over twice as high as the global average which complicates an already challenging situation in the country. Although progress has been made toward improving availability of treatment and the rights and status of women, cultural norms and historical precedents have delayed advances, including in drug tr...

Background The FDA’s policies restricting sale of sweet flavored cartridge-based and disposable electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) comprise important steps toward curbing adolescent ENDS use. However, additional evidence is needed about the contribution of specific flavors to adolescents’ ENDS use. This study investigated the effects of fl...

Background No economic evaluations exist of free or subsidized ridesharing services designed to reduce impaired driving. Objectives To evaluate the effects and economics of a 17-weekend program that provided rideshare coupons good for free one-way or round trips to/from the hospitality zones in Columbus, Ohio, coupled with a modest increase in enf...

Background: High-risk alcohol use on college campuses is a significant public health concern, especially among students in fraternities and sororities. Alcohol harm-reduction programs that include protective behavioral strategies (PBSs) provide a promising approach to curb drinking among students, yet results have been inconsistent among high-risk...

Abstract: To help inform policy and prevention, we used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine daily context, characteristics, motivations, and patterns of e-cig use among 50 adolescent vapers, ages 14 to 17, in Kentucky. An initial survey assessed demographics and e-cig use and perceptions while daily surveys over two weeks (700 observat...

Much evidence exists on whether an individual's perception of a match relationship impacts match strength and length, but relatively less is known about whether parental perceptions of the match (i.e., whether the match is meeting their goals) impacts the length and strength of mentoring relationships. These relationships were examined in a sample...

The Creating Lasting Family Connections® (CLFC) program is designed to help improve relationship skills and reduce antisocial behaviors. Strader and colleagues propose that prosocial connectedness is responsible for program outcomes. We propose that the intersection of high agreeableness and low impulsivity represent an operational definition. We e...

The purpose of the present study was to identify the factors that are the strongest predictors of intentions and use of integrative medicine approaches in clinical practice. Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior was used to guide our examination of these questions. Health care professionals exposed to a Veterans Health Administration program (N = 288)...

Marriage and family strengthening programs have historically had small magnitude effects on changing relationship outcomes. The present study explores the possibility that although these statistical effects are small, they can be shown to represent meaningful financial impacts. Secondary data from 2092 control and 2042 intervention couples who were...

This chapter describes the Creating Lasting Family Connections (CLFC) personal and family strengthening curriculum model currently in use throughout the United States and six other countries. Further, this chapter describes the CLFC program's theoretical framework and populations of focus, along with the strategies and techniques used in the progra...

This chapter describes the Creating Lasting Family Connections Fatherhood Program: Family Reintegration (CLFCFP). This personal and family strengthening curriculum model is currently in use throughout the United States. This chapter describes the CLFCFP program's theoretical framework and populations of focus, along with the strategies and techniqu...

This chapter describes the Creating Lasting Family Connections Marriage Enhancement Program (CLFCMEP). This model is currently in use throughout the United States. Further, this chapter describes the CLFCMEP program's theoretical framework and populations of focus, along with the strategies and techniques used in the program to achieve positive out...

The present study is a replication of the Creating Lasting Family Connections Fatherhood Program (CLFCFP) using a randomized controlled trial (RCT). CLFCFP has been shown in prior studies to have a positive impact on relationship skills and recidivism using weaker quasi-experimental designs (McKiernan et al., 2013 Shamblen, S. R., Arnold, B. B., Mc...

African-American females in the U.S. are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, and a large majority of new infections in this population are attributed to heterosexual contact. Risk factors include substance abuse, lack of knowledge about male partners’ possible HIV infection risk, incarceration, disruptions of social networks, and intimate part...

Background and objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess whether a 2.5 day clinical education course focused on integrative medicine (IM), complementary health (CH), and patient-centered care strategies delivered to staff at Veteran Health Administration (VHA) facilities resulted in changes in attitudes, self-efficacy, preparedness, inte...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a health coaching (HC) course for providers and staff in Veterans Health Affairs medical facilities resulted in increased attitudes toward, intentions to use, and actual use of HC. A Whole Health Coaching Course was developed and implemented in national sites in 2014. A pre-post intervention group...

This article presents an oral health (OH) strategy and pilot study focusing on individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) living in group homes. The strategy consists of four components: (1) planned action in the form of the behavioral contract and caregiver OH action planning; (2) capacity building through didactic and o...

Objective: The current study examines gender differences in drug-abuse treatment (DAT) entry, dropout, and outcomes in seven DAT centers in Afghanistan. This is the first study to examine gender differences in DAT programming in Afghanistan. Design: A prospective cohort design of 504 women and men in seven DAT centers in Afghanistan was used in...

Introduction: Although Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) has been one of the most commonly used prevention programmes in the United States, few evaluations have shown DARE to be an effective prevention program. DARE (or PROERD) is frequently used in Brazil as well. A central component of DARE is police officers serving as instructors. It was o...

New analytical tools have facilitated the exploration of the trajectories of alcohol use; however, there are a limited number of studies that explore early adolescence. A sample of 5,903 youths followed from sixth through eighth grade was used to (1) examine the trajectories of alcohol use and (2) determine the degree to which common correlates pre...

Divorce proportions are currently high in the US and they are even higher among those who are incarcerated with substance abuse problems. Although much research has examined marital interventions, only two studies have examined marital interventions with prison populations. There is some empirical evidence that incarcerated couples benefit from tra...

Introduction Although, drug addiction is well documented in Afghanistan, organised drug abuse treatment (DAT) has been limited there until recently, and no evaluation studies of DAT outcomes in Afghanistan have been conducted. In response to this need, a feasibility study was conducted between October 2009 and January 2012 to evaluate the drug abus...

Background This article focuses on examining drug abuse treatment (DAT) in El Salvador highlighting gang vs. non-gang membership differences in drug use and treatment outcomes. Methods Cross-sectional and prospective cohort designs were employed to examine the study aims. The 19 centers that met the study’s inclusion criteria of one year or less i...

This paper presents baseline findings on correlates of condom use with “main” and “concurrent” sex partners among Liberian youth (ages 15–17) in Liberia. With Liberia having recently emerged from fourteen years of civil war, this paper is one of only a few published reports of the sexual risk behaviors of urban youth residing in Monrovia, Liberia’s...

There is increasing evidence of the effectiveness of continued care after reentry for those who have participated in prison-based substance abuse treatment. This article presents results from analyses of program and comparison group data from two community-based programs that implemented a culturally adapted version of the Creating Lasting Family C...

Bullying is endemic in the nation's schools and takes a substantial toll on its victims' physical and social-emotional well-being. We assessed the association between specific reasons for which adolescents believe that they are targeted for bullying and their rates of various types of substance use by analyzing the association between self-reported...

This article presents results from a study of a home environmental strategy (HES) designed to reduce availability of harmful legal products (HLPs) in the home that can be used by youth to get high. HLPs include inhalants, prescription and nonprescription drugs, and household products that can be ingested to get high. Availability is one of the most...

Conventional wisdom suggests that inhalant use is primarily isolated to youthful experimentation; however, a growing body of evidence suggests that inhalant use (a) occurs after use of common substances of experimentation (e.g., alcohol, marijuana), (b) can persist into later life, and (c) is associated with severe consequences. The current study e...

This study, conducted in 2005 to 2007, presents results that are based on a proscriptive cohort design. The sample consisted of 769 residents in 22 drug user treatment programs who stayed in treatment for at least 30 days to one year; 510 former residents (66%) from 21 programs (95%) were interviewed again at a 6-month post-treatment follow-up asse...

Denial of human rights, gender disparities, and living in a war zone can be associated with severe depression and poor social functioning, especially for female drug abusers. This study of Afghan women in drug abuse treatment (DAT) centers assesses (a) the extent to which these women have experienced human rights violations and mental health proble...

We examined whether parental monitoring at baseline predicted subsequent substance use in a high-risk youth population. Students in 14 alternative high schools in Washington State completed self-report surveys at three time points over the course of 2 years. Primary analyses included 1,423 students aged 14-20 who lived with at least one parent or s...

Data were collected from samples of youth (ages 11-18; N = 38,268) and young 10 adults (ages 18-24; N = 602) across 30 Tennessee counties using surveys and telephone interviews conducted in 2006-2008. Data were analyzed using hierarchical nonlinear modeling to determine: (1) which risk and protective factors predicted alcohol and marijuana use, and...

This exploratory study sought to determine if a popular school-based drug prevention program might be effective in schools that are making adequate yearly progress (AYP). Thirty-four schools with grades 6 through 8 in 11 states were randomly assigned either to receive Project ALERT (n = 17) or to a control group (n = 17); of these, 10 intervention...

This study examined whether sixth-graders' depressed mood and positive substance use expectancies predicted increases over the next two years in students' lifetime and 30-day cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use, and whether sixth graders' positive substance use expectancies moderated the relationship between baseline depressed mood and changes ov...

Using a randomized controlled effectiveness trial, we examined the effects of Project SUCCESS on a range of secondary outcomes, including the program's mediating variables. Project SUCCESS, which is based both on the Theory of Reasoned Action and on Cognitive Behavior Theory, is a school-based substance use prevention program that targets high-risk...

Recent national youth surveys suggest that alcohol availability plays a role in determining use. One measure of availability receiving recent attention is outlet density; however, few studies have examined the effects of outlet density in younger populations. Data were collected from a national sample of the United States (N = 5,903) followed betwe...

Needs assessments in substance abuse prevention often rely on secondary data measures of consumption and consequences to determine what population subgroup and geographic areas should receive a portion of limited resources. Although these secondary data measures have some benefits (e.g. large sample sizes, lack of survey response biases and cost),...

This article represents a replication and extension of previous studies of the effects of Project ALERT, a school-based substance use prevention program, on the prodrug beliefs of adolescents. Specifically, the authors' research examined Project ALERT's effects on adolescents' intentions to use substances in the future, beliefs about substance use...

This study assesses the implementation quality of Think Smart, a school-based drug prevention curriculum that was designed to reduce use of harmful legal products (HLPs; e.g., inhalants and over-the-counter drugs), alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs among 5th- and 6th-grade students in frontier Alaska. Participating in the study were eight communiti...

We present the short-term results of a quasi-experimental evaluation of the revised D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) curriculum. Study outcomes examined were D.A.R.E.'s effects on three substances, namely students' lifetime and 30-day use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, as well as their school attendance and academic performance. The...

Preliminary results are presented from a feasibility study of a comprehensive community prevention intervention to reduce the use of inhalants and other harmful legal products (HLPs) among adolescents in three Alaskan frontier communities conducted in 2004-2007. The legal products used to get high include over-the-counter drugs, prescription drugs,...

School-based drug prevention curricula constitute the nation's most prevalent strategy to prevent adolescent drug use. We evaluated the effects of one such curriculum, Project ALERT, on adolescent substance use. In particular, we sought to determine if a single effect on 30-day alcohol use, noted shortly following the completion of the 2-year progr...

Project SUCCESS is a selective and indicated substance use prevention program that targets high risk students in secondary school settings. We evaluated the effects of Project SUCCESS on adolescents' substance use immediately following program implementation, and again one year later. Two successive cohorts of alternative high schools were randomly...

To evaluate the effects of Project ALERT on adolescents' lifetime and 30-day use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and inhalants. Cluster randomized trial. Schools from 11 states were enrolled in 2 successive cohorts from 2004 to 2008. All public schools in the United States that included grades 6 through 8 and enrolled at least 100 students in si...

This article reports results from a student survey fielded using an experimental design with 14 Kentucky school districts. Seven of the 14 districts were randomly assigned to implement the survey with active consent procedures; the other seven districts implemented the survey with passive consent procedures. We used our experimental design to inves...

This study tests for the efficacy of a school-based drug prevention curriculum (Think Smart) that was designed to reduce use of Harmful Legal Products (HLPs, such as inhalants and over-the-counter drugs), alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs among fifth- and sixth-grade students in frontier Alaska. The curriculum consisted of 12 core sessions and 3 bo...

The Institute of Medicine distinguishes between programs based on who is targeted: the entire population (universal), those at risk (selective), or persons exhibiting the early stages of use or related problem behavior (indicated). Evaluations suggest that although universal programs can be effective in reducing and preventing substance use, select...

This paper presents results from an application of the Community Readiness Model (CRM) as part of a multi-stage community mobilization strategy to engage community leaders, retailers, parents, and school personnel in preventing youth use of inhalants and other harmful legal products in rural Alaska. The CRM is designed to assess readiness to addres...

Project SUCCESS (PS) is a substance use prevention program that targets indicated high school students. We used archival data to explore the program's effects on students' academic achievement and disciplinary problems. It is essential to demonstrate such effects, if prevention curricula are to survive in schools that face multiple competing demand...

This research study sought to develop, pilot test, and assess a brief male-centered condom promotion program for urban young adult African American males. For study implementation, both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used, and the project was guided by tenets of two common but integrated theoretical frameworks in HIV/sexually tr...

There is an absence of systematic, comparative research examining the negative consequences that are experienced as a result of using specific substances. Further, techniques typically used for needs assessment (i.e., prevalence proportions) do not take into account the probability of experiencing a negative consequence as a result of using specifi...

Protecting You/Protecting Me (PY/PM) is a classroom-based, alcohol-use prevention and vehicle safety program for students in grades 1-5 developed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). PY/PM is one of the first alcohol prevention programs targeting children that incorporates emerging research on the adverse effects of alcohol on the developing br...

This evaluation assesses an international law enforcement training program designed to aid law enforcement officials in combating international crime. Analyses of data from a sample of 214 participants across four training cohorts showed that favorable reaction was adequate to very adequate, their knowledge increased significantly, commitment to kn...

A social allergy is a reaction of hypersensitive annoyance or disgust to a repeated behavior. Two studies were conducted on the social allergen categories of uncouth habits, inconsiderate acts, intrusive behaviors, and norm violations. Study 1 focused on hypothetical male and female partner behaviors at 2 and 12 months in a dating relationship. Stu...

This study examined the impact on high school students who taught elementary students MADD's Protecting You/Protecting Me (PY/PM), an alcohol use prevention and vehicle safety program. High school students (N = 188) enrolled in a peer helping course completed surveys before and after teaching PY/PM, and a comparison group of peer helper students (N...

Discussion of the nature of personal aesthetics, or physical attractiveness, seems to alternate between two positions, which we term Natural Classicism and Cultural Constructivism. These two positions are illustrated in fashion historian Julian Robinson’s (1998) account of a conversation that he had with art historian Sir Kenneth Clark: “Sir Kennet...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Louisville, 2004. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Vita. "May 2004." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-204). Electronic reproduction. Mode of access: World Wide Web.