STAGE 2. Analysing feasibility
What steps should be completed?
STEP 3: Assess the community environment
The last step in this stage is to assess community responsiveness and willingness to participate in the intervention. Drug demand reduction interventions can generate ambivalence in the population of an area. If a drug-related problem worsens, it can have serious consequences for society, but that does not necessarily mean that the population feels the need to act to change the situation. It is therefore common for some people to think that someone has a drug-related problem because they have brought it upon themselves. In this respect, a high-quality intervention may lack the community support it needs for satisfactory implementation. If this happens, it is very likely not to be implemented, or fail to achieve its results, despite having a high theoretical potential.
As stated above, it is important to assess the responsiveness of the community environment when planning an intervention in a problem related to drug use and, eventually, to invest effort in changing population preferences. Additional information about community support and tools to assess and improve it, and increase community participation can be found at the following links. +
Availability of the community environment is the extent to which a community can be involved in improving a problem, in this case related to drug use. This availability depends on a number of circumstances that should be explored, such as:
Qualitative research techniques are often appropriate for collecting this type of information. However, they require specific knowledge, experience, resources and operating conditions. See
Once you have compiled this information, it may be useful to summarise and analyse the threats and opportunities offered your intervention by the community environment. One Step@a Time will suggest a way to do this. +
© COPOLAD. Cooperation Programme between Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union on Drugs Policies.
