Prevention - Alcohol, Tobacco, and other drugs

Adolescents living in high-poverty urban settings face complex challenges to their health and futures.

EDC’s innovative youth tobacco control intervention, developed on behalf of the World Health Organization and successfully pilot tested in India, Ghana, and Mexico, is now being adapted and pilot tested in Montevideo, Uruguay.

EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs (HHD) is extending its work in youth substance abuse prevention and treatment through a new partnership with the local MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation.

Many of the more than eight million college students in the United States are faced with health and safety issues related to heavy use of alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, violence and injury, and the full range of mental health problems. These issues include hate crimes, vandalism, high-risk sexual practices, academic failure, and suicide.

The National Center for College Health and Safety, part of EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs (HHD), released a study showing that campuses with smoking bans in their residence halls don’t suffer any major financial consequences for their no-smoking policies.

EDC’s Center for College Health and Safety (CCHS) secured a five-year, $11.4 million contract from the U.S. Department of Education to continue to operate the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention, previously known as the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention.

EDC’s Center for College Health and Safety is one of nine co–signatories on a full-page notice published in Tuesday’s editions of the The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, and US News & World Report. The letter, issued by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), is part of a new outreach effort focusing on marijuana’s negative impact on teen learning and academic success.

College students, alcohol use, and cars create a deadly combination. The U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention, housed at EDC, has published Safe Lanes on Campus: A Guide for Preventing Impaired Driving and Underage Drinking. The publication, which is available online, in print, and on CD, describes “environmental management strategies” that can change the climate on campuses and in their surrounding communities to deter driving under the influence and high-risk and illegal alcohol use.

College students consistently overestimate how much their peers are drinking, according to many research studies. In turn, that widespread misperception encourages some students to drink more to “keep up” with the majority of their peers. Would students drink less if they had more accurate information about the campus “norm?”