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Preventing Underage Drinking
Using Getting To Outcomes™ with the SAMHSA Strategic Prevention Framework to Achieve Results
Underage drinking is a significant problem in the United States: Alcohol is the primary contributor to the leading causes of death among adolescents. As a result, communitywide strategies to prevent underage drinking are more important than ever. Such strategies depend on the involvement and education of adolescents, parents, law enforcement officials, merchants, and other stakeholders. This guide is designed to take communities through the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating strategies to prevent underage drinking and youth access to alcohol. The guide is structured according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) Strategic Prevention Framework, a five-step prevention approach. Within the five steps, the guide adopts the Getting To Outcomes™ model of empowerment evaluation, results-based accountability, and continuous quality improvement. The result is a comprehensive, step-by-step manual for developing, implementing, and evaluating a high-quality communitywide plan to prevent underage drinking and its related consequences. Recommendations include the development of educational strategies for parents, adolescents, and alcohol merchants; attracting the involvement of civic leaders; working to reform legislation governing underage access to alcohol; and training law enforcement officials to be vigilant but safe in their efforts to police underage drinking in the community.
The trademarks “GTO” and “Getting to Outcomes” are owned by the University of South Carolina. These marks are used by RAND only with permission from the University of South Carolina.
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Contents
Chapter One:
How can we organize the community to profile community needs and resources regarding underage drinking? (Community Mobilization)
Chapter Two:
What are the underlying needs and conditions that must be addressed in the community to reduce underage drinking? (Assessment)
Chapter Three:
What are the goals, target populations, and desired outcomes for the community? (Goals)
Chapter Four:
What capacities need to be strengthened to develop and implement a plan to reduce underage drinking? (Capacities)
Chapter Five:
What evidence-based environmental strategies will be useful in helping to achieve the goals? (Environmental Strategies)
Chapter Six:
How will the environmental strategies to reduce underage drinking “fit” within the community context? (Fit)
Chapter Seven:
What is the plan for reducing underage drinking? (Plan)
Chapter Eight:
How will the implementation of plan to reduce underage drinking be assessed? (Process Evaluation)
Chapter Nine:
How well are the strategies working in the comprehensive plan to reduce underage drinking? (Outcome Evaluation)
Chapter Ten:
How will we ensure that the strategies to reduce underage drinking will continuously improve over time? (Continuous Quality Improvement)
Chapter Eleven:
If the underage drinking plan is successful, how will it be sustained? (Sustain)
Appendix A:
Summary Action Steps for Conducting a Policy Panel
Appendix B:
Choosing Policy Panel Members
Appendix C:
Example of a Community Policy Panel
Appendix D:
Needs Assessments Resources
Appendix E:
Environmental Scan: Data Collection Form
Appendix F:
Sample Data Collection Planning Tool
Appendix G:
Goals Tool
Appendix H:
Planning Tool
Appendix I:
Implementation Tool
Appendix J:
Community Change Event Log
Appendix K:
Community Change Summary
Appendix L:
CQI Tool
Appendix M:
Meeting Contact Form
Appendix N:
Outcome Evaluation Tool
Appendix O:
Sobriety Checks
The research in this report was funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The research was conducted within RAND Health, a division of the RAND Corporation.
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