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Technical Assistance
Research Publications:
A Resource for Your Community to Prevent Underage and Hazardous
Drinking
The Community Prevention Initative
(CPI) is pleased to present a new series that will make
understanding and accomplishing effective prevention strategies
targeting underage and hazardous drinking more accessible for
your community. This series of four Technical Assistance
Research Publications is designed to give you background
information and practical knowledge that you can use in applying
some of the most promising strategies available to the field of
prevention. This resource comes at a time when many communities
are grappling with unprecedented drinking problems and shrinking
budgets to address them.
Click on the titles below
to access the publications as PDF files. |
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 Policy
Strategies to Reduce Underage and
Binge Drinking
Those
who have a stake in the status quo already use
public policy to protect their interests, such as
keeping taxes on alcohol low, challenging
restrictions on advertising, and promoting
legislation that increases the availability of
alcohol (e.g., permitting gasoline stations to sell
alcohol). Likewise, community members can also
advocate for changes in laws, regulations, and other
policies, in this case to improve health and safety.
Public health advocates, for example, have sought
policies to restrict or ban price discounts; limit
the number of alcohol outlets; require server and
retailer training; limit placement of alcohol
advertising near schools, churches, and day care
centers; and increase the number of alcohol-free
settings, events, and activities. They have
advocated for stronger enforcement of alcohol
regulations and made prevention of hazardous
drinking a high priority on the public agenda.
The purpose of this publication is to assist
prevention professionals in developing policy
strategies to address the problems associated with
high-risk and underage drinking in their
communities. This paper provides an overview of
policy strategies, current research on their
effectiveness, and their application in the
community as part of an environmental prevention
systems approach. |
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Media Advocacy
"...the news is far too powerful a force to be
ignored. Unless we use our creativity and commitment
to participate in the public debate, our
perspectives will be left out. Our diverse voices
will not be heard, and our faces not seen. Our
issues will be shaped by others, and our goals will
remain a private dream harbored by a select few
rather than a coherent vision that can be understood
and shared by others.”
- Lawrence Wallack,
News for a Change, 1999.
Media advocacy is the strategic use of media to gain
public and policymaker support for policy goals.
Media advocacy also contributes to community norms
change. It sets the public agenda and advances
policy-based solutions. Media advocacy frames issues
to emphasize that problems are a shared community
responsibility, and as such are amenable to change.
Finally, media advocacy empowers community members
to take control of conditions affecting public
health. This paper describes these key concepts in
media advocacy, how media advocacy fits in the
framework of a systems approach, and practical media
advocacy techniques. |
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Environmental Prevention
Over
the years, there have been several studies
attempting to summarize the state of research on the
effectiveness of various strategies to control
alcohol and reduce alcohol-related problems: studies
on underage drinking (IOM, 2002), college binge
drinking (NIAAA, 2002), and policy (Alcohol
Epidemiology Program, 2000; Babor et al., 2003;
SAMSHA, 1999). The reviews consistently report that
the most effective strategies are alcohol taxes, the
minimum legal drinking age, graduated licensing for
novice drivers, zero tolerance laws for underage
drinking and driving, and visible and vigorous
enforcement of alcohol policies.
Environmental prevention is a systems approach
designed to change structures and community norms
that facilitate underage and hazardous drinking.
This publication provides an overview of research on
environmental prevention, discusses the key elements
of an environmental prevention model, and provides
information on planning and additional resources to
apply these strategies at the community level.
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