Celebrating 20 years of the Positive Community Norms Program
For more than two decades, the Positive Community Norms (PCN) program has been a cornerstone of Minnesota's commitment to reducing youth alcohol and drug use. Launched with a vision of building healthier communities by highlighting what is right, rather than focusing on what is wrong, PCN brought an evidence-informed, strengths-based approach to prevention work across the state.
At its heart, PCN was built on a sound public health principle: that young people are more likely to make healthy choices when they understand what healthy choices look like among their peers. By sharing accurate, positive data about peer behavior, PCN helped shift conversations in schools, neighborhoods and communities across Minnesota toward health-affirming norms and away from risk-focused messaging.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services is proud of what PCN has represented—a sustained, evidence-supported investment in the health and well-being of Minnesota's young people. We are deeply grateful to the many communities, local public health workers, schools and organizations who carried this work forward with dedication and care.
The evolving science of primary prevention
Over the 20 years since PCN was launched, the science of primary prevention has advanced significantly. Research has produced a clearer, more rigorous picture of what works, and what works best for which populations and settings. This growing body of evidence calls on us to update and strengthen our prevention portfolio accordingly.
Key findings from the prevention science literature have shaped this transition:
- Programs with the strongest evidence of effectiveness are those that address multiple risk and protective factors simultaneously, engage families and natural support systems and are implemented with fidelity to tested models.
- The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) have identified specific evidence-based programs that consistently reduce youth substance use when implemented as designed.
- Prevention approaches that are adapted to the specific context, norms and needs of a community, and tested for effectiveness in that context, outperform generic, one-size-fits-all models.
- Emerging research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), social determinants of health and trauma-informed approaches has deepened our understanding of the upstream factors that drive substance use risk, and the community-level interventions that address them most effectively.
Minnesota's communities deserve prevention programming that reflects this current evidence base. Transitioning away from PCN is a recognition that prevention science has matured, and that our responsibility to Minnesota's young people requires keeping pace with it.
Why change is needed: Aligning with evidence-based standards
The Department of Human Services (DHS) has conducted a careful review of PCN's outcomes and alignment with current evidence-based prevention standards. Several findings support the decision to transition to updated approaches:
Outcome Evidence Has Evolved
While PCN's social norms approach was innovative at its launch and demonstrated early promise, more recent research has raised questions about the consistency of its effects across different populations and settings. Meta-analyses of social norms-based programs show mixed results, with effect sizes that are smaller than those achieved by more comprehensive, multi-component prevention models. Programs that combine social norms messaging with skill-building, family engagement and environmental strategies show stronger and more durable outcomes.
The Fentanyl Crisis Demands Updated Prevention Strategies
The landscape of substance use in Minnesota has shifted dramatically. The illicit drug supply has been transformed by the proliferation of fentanyl, and the overdose crisis has reached populations and geographies previously less affected. Effective primary prevention today must address this reality directly—including accurate education about fentanyl risk, the role of evidence-based life-saving strategies as a complement to prevention and approaches that build community capacity to respond to overdose as well as prevent it.
Reaching High-Risk Populations Requires Targeted, Evidence-Based Approaches
Research identifies specific populations with elevated substance use risk, including youth experiencing adverse childhood experiences, those with family histories of substance use disorder and young people in communities with higher rates of poverty or housing instability. Effective primary prevention requires targeted, evidence-based programming for these populations, not just universal messaging. Minnesota's updated prevention strategy will prioritize programs with demonstrated effectiveness in reaching and engaging higher-risk youth.
Our Path Forward: A Stronger Evidence-Based Prevention Framework
The transition away from PCN is a step toward a more rigorous, outcomes-focused prevention system for Minnesota. The values that made PCN meaningful, community investment, a belief in young people's capacity to make healthy choices and a commitment to prevention over intervention, remain at the center of our work.
As we plan the next phase of Minnesota's substance use prevention strategy, DHS is committed to:
- Evidence-Based Program Selection: Prioritizing programs with strong empirical support, including those listed on SAMHSA's National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP) and similar clearinghouses, with demonstrated effectiveness in reducing youth substance use initiation and progression.
- Multi-Component Prevention Models: Moving toward comprehensive approaches that address individual, family, peer, school and community risk and protective factors simultaneously—consistent with the best evidence on what produces lasting prevention outcomes.
- Fidelity and Quality Assurance: Supporting providers in implementing evidence-based programs with fidelity to tested models, including training, technical assistance and ongoing quality monitoring to ensure programs are delivered as designed.
- Data-Driven Decision Making: Strengthening Minnesota's prevention data infrastructure to track outcomes, identify gaps and continuously improve program effectiveness across communities and populations.
- Primary Prevention and Comprehensive Public Health Integration: Recognizing that effective public health strategy pairs upstream prevention with life-saving intervention—ensuring that communities have access to both tools to reduce substance use initiation and to protect lives when use occurs.
DHS will be engaging community partners, local public health agencies, schools, Tribal Nations and other stakeholders in shaping this next chapter of Minnesota's prevention work.
Thank You
To every community partner, public health professional, school and organization that brought PCN to life over the past 20 years, thank you. You showed up for Minnesota's young people with creativity, commitment and care. That work matters, and it is part of the foundation on which we build what comes next.
Minnesota is a state that takes prevention seriously. As our understanding of what works continues to grow, so does our determination to meet every Minnesotan, and especially every young Minnesotan, with prevention programs that are worthy of them. We are committed to that standard, and we are excited for what is ahead.
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