Prevention - Alcohol, Tobacco, and other drugs

In the wake of renewed calls to reduce the age to 18, the U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcoholand Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention, located at EDC, has developed a fact sheet and resource bank.

Many parents acknowledge that teenagers are drinking, but most believe that the drinkers are other people’s children. However, the numbers prove that that hope is likely to be false. In Revere, Massachusetts, for example, surveys found that more than half of middle school students were drinkers. In response, community members invited EDC to help parents and others understand and reduce underage drinking.

Underage drinking affects not only teens, but their families and the community-at-large. An ongoing project in EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs (HHD)is working to change the social norms that contribute to dangerous teen drinking in Revere, Massachusetts, an urban community of 47,000 just north of Boston.

EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs (HHD) has just launched the Connecting Across Cultures Web site, which focuses on issues of immigrant and refugee populations and substance abuse.

A new word has entered the New Oxford American Dictionary: “pre-gaming.” Not a sports or recreation term, it’s the practice of downing alcohol before attending a school event or party where liquor is banned or in short supply.

As colleges crack down on happy hours, frat parties, and underage drinking, the number of students showing up drunk at campus-sponsored and other events may still be on the rise. In a practice known as “pre-gaming,” students evade new restrictions on drinking by loading up on alcohol in private settings before heading out for the night.

The Center for College Health and Safety in EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs (HHD) is partnering with the University of Washington’s Addictive Behaviors Research Center (ABRC) in a first-in-the nation effort to train campuses to implement an individual-focused intervention that has proven to be effective in moderating students’ drinking patterns and reducing alcohol related harms.

Violence, substance abuse, unprotected sex, and related risky behaviors take a tragic toll on the lives of individuals and their communities. To prevent these risks, we must first understand the factors and circumstances that contribute to risk-taking. EDC’s Center for Research on High Risk Behaviors (RHRB) conducts a variety of research projects that develop, evaluate, and disseminate effective interventions for reducing health risks.

After successfully piloting its youth tobacco control program in India, Ghana, and Mexico, EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs is now testing the model in Uruguay. The country, emerging as a leader in tobacco control efforts in Latin America, was one of the first in the region to ratify the international Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.