Preventing the Incidence and Harm of Gambling Problems
An increase in prevalence of problem gambling and gambling-related costs to the individual, family, and community are accompanying the spreading availability of venues in which to gamble. This highlights the need for effective educational programs, media campaigns, consumer protection, and public policy aimed at preventing increased incidence of problematic gambling behavior. This review explores prominent models of prevention including the risk and protective factors model, levels-of-prevention, and the public health perspective and illustrates each model's power to facilitate efforts toward preventing gambling problems. The current state of problem made. Editors' Strategic Implications: Researchers and policymakers will benefit from the review and set of recommendations and also the detailed supplemental online content, in the form of six helpful Appendixes related to gambling prevention resources and materials.

Comprehensive reviews of the scientific literature suggest a growing trend toward the proliferation of gambling venues, increased expenditures, and serious adverse consequences for those individuals with a gambling problems, as well as increases in problem gambling prevalence over the past 30 years (National Research Council (NRC) 1999; Shaffer and Hall 2001). In the United States, national and state prevalence studies have found the rates of adult probable pathological gambling (termed 'probable' because a 'screen' is used rather than a DSM-diagnosis) to range from slightly less than 1% to over 6% among adults with adolescent rates uniformly exceeding adult rates (NRC 1999; Volberg 2003). From a public health perspective, both probable pathological gamblers (PPGs) and individuals involved in some problematic gambling behaviors (referred to as problem gamblers 'at risk' for developing pathological gambling) are of concern and a number of recent papers on gambling as a significant public health have emerged (e.g., Korn and Shaffer 1999; Messerlian et al. 2005). As such, a review of local, state, and national problem gambling prevention will help mental and public health service providers and policy makers understand what is being done about, and how to address, this relatively new concern across cultures. This review will explore models for prevention of the prevalence (how many people are affected by problem gambling) and incidence (the frequency in which new people are developing the disorder within the general population), critically examine and synthesize the current literature on prevention, identify and provide information concerning current programs, and make recommendations for future directions.