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Integrating Prevention Strategies and Health Promotion in Substance Addiction
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Integrating Prevention Strategies and Health Promotion in Substance Addiction

A Special Issue of Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032) belonging to the section "Public Health and Preventive Medicine".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026 | Viewed by 902

Editor

Dr. Kristen Emory

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Public Health and Health Sciences, California State University, Carson, CA 90747, USA
Interests: health disparities; health equity; mental health concerns; unhealthy substance use or abuse

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

There is widespread acknowledgement that substance use disorders, such as addiction and dependency, remain important public health concerns in the United States (US) and globally. There is a great need to identify, assess, and implement successful strategies to address the underlying factors that are associated with substance addiction and dependency to both better understand and address this important public health concern.

Much of the available literature explores treatment of substance use disorders, rather than the primary and secondary prevention techniques that may help minimize the likelihood that a community will be negatively impacted by substance addiction and dependency. Community-centered preventative approaches following models of public health are promising strategies to potentially reduce the negative health and social impacts associated with substance dependency.

This Special Issue aims to publish original studies and reviews of the literature that explore public health and preventative strategies aimed at reducing and preventing substance use disorders. The methodologies used may include a variety of public health, community health, sociological, psychological, social work, and clinical approaches. We will consider narrative, systematic, umbrella reviews, and meta-analysis examining questions related to the prevention of substance use disorders. Community-centered studies with diverse populations are encouraged.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Best Regards,

Dr. Kristen Emory
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • prevention
  • health promotion
  • substance use disorder
  • addiction
  • dependency
  • dependence
  • alcohol
  • tobacco
  • drugs

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

32 pages, 2259 KB  
Review
Resilience as a Protective Factor in Substance Use Prevention: A Narrative Review of Health Promotion Strategies Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood
by Donna L. Roberts
Healthcare 2026, 14(15), 2252; https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare14152252 - 23 Jul 2026
Viewed by 462
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Substance use disorders remain a significant public health concern, particularly when vulnerability emerges during adolescence and young adulthood. Although much of the literature has focused on treatment and recovery, prevention-oriented scholarship increasingly points to the value of strengths-based approaches that reduce risk [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Substance use disorders remain a significant public health concern, particularly when vulnerability emerges during adolescence and young adulthood. Although much of the literature has focused on treatment and recovery, prevention-oriented scholarship increasingly points to the value of strengths-based approaches that reduce risk by cultivating protective processes. This narrative review examines resilience as a protective factor in substance use prevention across adolescence and young adulthood, with particular attention to health promotion, developmental context, and multilevel prevention systems. Methods: A narrative review approach was used to synthesize interdisciplinary literature from psychology, public health, education, addiction studies, and prevention science. The review focused on peer-reviewed scholarship addressing resilience, protective factors, and prevention-related processes relevant to adolescent and young adult substance use. Literature was analyzed thematically across major domains including conceptualizations of resilience, developmental relevance, protective factors, prevention strategies, diverse and at-risk populations, and conceptual and methodological challenges. Results: The literature suggests that resilience is most useful for substance use prevention when conceptualized as a dynamic and ecological process rather than a fixed individual trait. Protective processes associated with lower substance use risk include emotional regulation, adaptive coping, family support, peer connectedness, school engagement, community cohesion, and culturally meaningful sources of identity and belonging. Prevention strategies appear most promising when they are multilevel, relational, developmentally responsive, and integrated with broader mental health and health promotion efforts. At the same time, the literature remains limited by definitional inconsistency, measurement variability, heterogeneous outcome indicators, a predominance of cross-sectional evidence, inconsistent or null protective effects for some factors and outcomes, and insufficiently contextualized uses of resilience. Conclusions: Resilience offers a valuable framework for substance use prevention across adolescence and young adulthood when it is grounded in developmental, ecological, and equity-aware perspectives. Prevention may be strengthened by moving beyond deficit-focused models and intentionally cultivating the supportive conditions under which young people can adapt, connect, and thrive without turning to substances as a means of coping. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Prevention Strategies and Health Promotion in Substance Addiction)
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