Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #103982

Linda A. Pratt, MA¹, Joseph H. Therrien², Elizabeth Morales¹, and Meagan Hobbs¹. (1) Community Prevention of Alcohol Related Problems (CommPre), 22652 Second Street, Hayward, CA 94541, 510-247-8207, lindapratt@horizonservices.org, (2) Public Media Center, 144 Toyon Drive, Fairfax, CA 94930

In order to reduce youth access to alcohol in Southern Alameda County, Community Prevention of Alcohol Related Problems (CommPre) is engaging youth in a counter-advertising campaign that targets adults. Recent school and community surveys have found that youth are easily obtaining alcohol from their homes. Objectives of this campaign include: (1) Increasing the awareness of the adult population that youth obtain alcohol at home, moving towards changing social norms of diligent storage of alcohol at home and disallowing youth consuming alcohol at home; (2) Increasing youth's civic involvement. The project was conducted in two phases: Phase I - a randomly selected pre-test survey was administered to households in the community; Phase II - the billboard message: “Don't Kid Yourself. Castro Valley Youth Get Alcohol at Home” was displayed in English and Spanish in two one-month increments. Evaluation will be conducted to measure the impact of the billboard messages. CommPre's Eden Youth Health Advisory Council (EYHAC) was instrumental in designing the campaign message and is implementing the pre/post testing evaluation of the effectiveness of the campaign. This project has enabled youth to be active participants in a project that is leading to social norm and policy change in their community. Preliminary response from the community has been supportive. The campaign has already resulted in reported parental behavior change and community discourse over alcohol issues. This project demonstrates the importance of involving youth in preventing youth access to alcohol and the effectiveness of a billboard counter-advertising campaign targeting adults.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to

• Describe methods of involving youth in preventing youth access to alcohol.
• Discuss the impact and effectiveness of a counter-advertising billboard campaign.
• Replicate a similar counter-advertising billboard campaign for their communities.

Keywords: Alcohol Problems, Youth Access

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation