Executive Summary

Drug abuse and addiction are major global public health challenges. Deaths caused by drug use increased 60% in the past 15 years. While youth in the rich North have access to efficacious substance abuse interventions, most children in the rest of the world do not, and when they do, prevention programs are seldom culturally appropriate or sustainable. Our solution will reach 1.1 million youth, 18,750 teachers, 3,750 schools across 15 countries and will: (1) Engage in an equitable, community-based campaign to adapt, implement, and evaluate keepin’ it REAL (kiR), an efficacious substance abuse prevention program; (2) Enhance community capacity to ensure lasting results of kiR; and (3) Partner with ETR for global product development, dissemination, and adoption of kiR. This initiative will facilitate collaboration between communities with similar needs and challenges and will impact the long-term health of communities in ways that are culturally appropriate, feasible, efficacious, replicable, and sustainable.