The papers are grouped under six topics: applied research for policymaking, program design, and behavioral change; framing interventions through training and technology transfer; women and substance abuse in Latin America and the Caribbean; grassroots interventions; communication interventions; and long-term interventions. The collection of papers aims to provide strategic, methodological, and practical insight for organizations and individuals committed to countering drug abuse in developing countries and in the United States as well. The work is based on a strategy that seeks to increase awareness of and education about the dangers of drug abuse, as well as to achieve behavioral change in the direction of a drug-free, healthy lifestyle. The essays illustrate the use of this strategy for generating effective and sustainable drug-awareness and prevention programs through a series of case histories drawn from the field experiences of the NAE project. These examples, in turn, provide lessons intended to contribute to future drug- awareness and education. The NAE project experience has led to the conclusion that there are four principal elements in an effective strategy for drug-abuse prevention: development of an understanding of the nature and extent of the drug problem to its fullest extent; development of an awareness on the part of the government, opinion leaders, and the general public of the importance of the drug-abuse problem; the development of the institutional capacity to conduct drug-abuse prevention programs through a variety of channels; and the development and implementation of behavioral-change intervention within this institutional framework. Chapter references