LaunchPad: Supporting Healthy Decisions and Preventing Drug Use After High School

Summary

LaunchPad is an online substance use prevention program for high school seniors. The program is designed to help seniors develop skills and make informed decisions as they transition from high school to young adulthood.

The purpose of this clinical trial is to learn whether individual LaunchPad lessons improve the specific attitudes, intentions, and skills they are designed to address. For example, researchers will examine whether the stress management lesson increases students' intentions to use healthy ways of managing stress.

The main question this study aims to answer is: Does each individual LaunchPad lesson improve the specific outcomes it was designed to address?

Researchers will compare students who receive a particular lesson with students who do not receive that lesson to determine whether the lesson changes the intended outcome.

Participants will:

* Complete a brief baseline survey
* Complete two introductory online lessons
* Complete one or more randomly assigned LaunchPad lessons
* Complete a brief follow-up survey

All surveys and lessons will be completed online.

Conditions

• Substance-related Disorders
• Alcohol-Related Disorders
• Tobacco Use Disorder
• Marijuana Use

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Introduction

Discusses choices and challenges students face as they transition out of high school to promote participant buy-in. Explains the consequences of SU, focusing on how these consequences can interfere with their life plans.

BEHAVIORAL

Norms re: Protective Behavior Strategies (PBS)

Provides messages from young adults that reveal positive attitudes (i.e., high injunctive norms) about using protective strategies to limit exposure to risky situations and behaviors. Messages will also emphasize low approval toward negative consequences of SU to motivate the need for PBS use.

BEHAVIORAL

Life Skills

Teaches social and decision-making skills such as SU refusal skills and strategies for coping with stress and anxiety.

BEHAVIORAL

Norms re: Bystander Intervention Strategies

Provides normative feedback about intervening on behalf of peers and teaches strategies to intervene on behalf of peers.

BEHAVIORAL

Making Friends

Teaches strategies to make friends without SU.

BEHAVIORAL

Norms about Substance Use

Corrects misperceptions about prevalence of SU among young adults and young adults' approval of SU.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

  collaborator NIH

• NORC at the University of Chicago

  collaborator OTHER

• Prevention Strategies, LLC

  lead INDUSTRY

Principal Investigators

• Kelly Rulison, PhD · Prevention Strategies, LLC

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

15 Years

Max Age

21 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-09-01

Primary Completion

2027-07-31

Completion

2029-04-30