Two Initiatives. One Goal: Innovative Collaborations to Prevent Underage Drinking

Background: In 2014, there were 8.7 million (22.8 percent) youth ages 12 to 20 who reported currently using alcohol.  Underage drinking contributes to more than 4,700 deaths annually, and is associated with academic failure, injury and violence, adult substance misuse, and increased risk of chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease.  Despite these serious consequences, in 2014, a majority of youth in the U.S. perceived no great risk from underage drinking.  Although rates of underage drinking have declined over the past decade, it remains a significant public health challenge. 

Program background: The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is a key player in reducing substance misuse in the U.S.  SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) implemented two initiatives aimed at building prevention capacity in communities to reduce underage drinking.  1) Communities Talk:  Town Hall Meetings to Prevent Underage Drinkingand 2) SAMHSA’s National Prevention Week are initiatives designed to educate communities about the consequences of underage drinking, disseminate evidence-based prevention messages, and mobilize communities to implement prevention efforts on a local level.  The initiatives support community-based organizations (CBOs) and institutions of higher education (IHEs) in hosting community engagement events to discuss, prioritize, and plan strategic prevention approaches to prevent underage drinking. 

Evaluation Methods and Results: This presentation will outline how SAMHSA’s two initiatives described above supported prevention capacity-building in communities across the U.S. using SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Framework.  Both quantitative (survey) and qualitative (critical case studies and storytelling) methods were used to triangulate results and provide context for how and why the initiatives were successful.  Results include raising stakeholder awareness, establishing and/or strengthening prevention coalition efforts, and expanding community resources.  Likewise, the initiatives have contributed to culturally responsive and sustainable prevention approaches by promoting community involvement in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of local underage drinking prevention programming. 

Conclusions: Communities across the U.S. have shown sustained interest in the initiatives, resulting in focused local prevention programming.  Community members attending local events reported learning new ways to prevent underage drinking.  The initiatives have fostered and reinforced innovative collaborations among local CBOs, IHEs, and SAMHSA.

Implications for research and/or practice: A decade of implementing initiatives based on SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Framework has produced further evidence of the effectiveness of the framework’s application to community engagement and capacity-building to prevent underage drinking.