2.2.1 Key Informant Interviews

Local contacts such as the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) representatives and State prevention coordinators played an instrumental role in helping researchers identify key community informants in each of the target and comparison sites. Other persons were identified through background research conducted on each of the sites (e.g., identifying names and telephone numbers of local law enforcement officials). The rationale for conducting such indepth discussions with key informants is that they are participants in the process being evaluated (in this case, the Media Campaign) and have insights that can be highly useful in helping to understand the nature of a problem, develop hypotheses that can be tested in other evaluations, and obtain an initial sense of how participants might perceive and react to proposed intervention approaches (Israel, Cummings, Dignan, Heaney, Perales, Simons-Morton, and Zimmerman, 1995). Examples of the categories of key informants that were interviewed during the baseline site visits included the following:

• Leaders in community-based prevention programs;

• Local government officials;

• Coalition leaders;

• Civic group leaders;

• Law enforcement representatives;

• Counselors and/or administrators from drug treatment programs;

• Health department representatives;

• Social service agency representatives;

• Local chamber of commerce members and business leaders;

• Educators, school administrators, and safe and drug-free school

coordinators;

• Other youth program representatives (e.g., Boys and Girls' Club directors, and YMCA program coordinators);

• Clergy and other faith community representatives; and

• Advocacy group leaders (e.g., the president of the Urban League).

During the intermediate site visits, the group of key informants was expanded to include media representatives (e.g., local television and radio station managers, media traffic managers, and newspaper editors). In addition, any new informants who were identified subsequent to the baseline site visit were interviewed. Two site visitors conducted the community interviews; in most cases they worked independently to complete all the interviews within 1 week, though at times they conducted interviews together. This report, covering baseline and intermediate site visits, reflects discussions with approximately 1,200 community informants.