Premium
Community‐backed drug initiatives in the UK: a review and commentary on evaluations
Author(s) -
Eley Susan
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
health and social care in the community
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.984
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1365-2524
pISSN - 0966-0410
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2524.2002.00348.x
Subject(s) - work (physics) , public relations , political science , medicine , psychology , medical education , engineering , mechanical engineering
This article presents a review of evaluations of community‐backed initiatives for drug users in the UK. Community‐backed responses have taken a number of approaches. Despite accessing over 250 publications relating to initiatives in the course of this study, a paucity of published evaluative evidence on ‘what works?’ and ‘why does it work?’ was apparent. The readily accessible literature is examined under five broad types of initiative: self‐help groups, parents’ groups, residents’ groups, community development groups and diversionary activity groups. In a further commentary on evaluation issues for such drug initiatives, it is argued that they are under‐evaluated, partly because they are on the margins of drug services and partly because of a lacuna of support in evaluation skills.