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Think Before You Buy Under-18s Drink: Evaluation of a Community Alcohol Intervention

NCJ Number
211303
Journal
Drug and Alcohol Review Volume: 24 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2005 Pages: 13-20
Author(s)
Kypros Kypri; Johanna Dean; Sandra Kirby; Jennifer Harris; Tai Kake
Date Published
January 2005
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This study evaluated the New Zealand community-based intervention campaign entitled, “Think before you buy under-18s drink.”
Abstract
New Zealand is one of many developed countries in which the hazardous consumption of alcohol by teenagers has blossomed into a significant public health problem. As such, the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (ALAC) developed a community-based intervention campaign that involved distributing educational information via media advertisements and point-of-sale flyers on the risks of supplying alcohol to teenagers. The current study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign by measuring the change in the prevalence of parent “supply for unsupervised drinking” (SUD) and the change in the prevalence of teenage binge drinking. The evaluation compared two intervention districts with one comparison district that did not receive the intervention campaign. Surveys were completed by youth from the three school districts and by parents who were sampled by household; each set of respondents completed two surveys, one at baseline and one at follow-up after the intervention. Statistical analyses indicated that binge drinking among teenagers decreased in all three study areas. While only 2 percent of parents reported SUD during the past month, a full 36 percent of teenagers reported SUD in the past month. Recent purchases of alcohol by those under the age of 18 years was common and may account for the discrepancies between the parent and teenager reports of SUD. The findings thus suggest that teenage binge drinking and parent SUD may not be causally related afterall. Figures, table, references