Promoting environmental prevention to community groups: Reducing underage alcohol problems in New Hampshire

Community groups are critical to the implementation of environmental prevention strategies and have tremendous power changing local policies and community conditions. Building on 8 years of experience training individuals to advocate for state legislative changes, New Futures began providing technical assistance to communities interested in community-based policy change. This technical assistance was based on Recommendations for Success: New Hampshire's Strategy to Reduce Underage Alcohol Problems, a state specific document driven from the NAS/IOM report on underage drinking. All communities approached to participate in this initiative had a level of readiness and interest in working toward local policy change. Planning in collaboration with a core group in each community led us to provide limited options at broader community meetings. In retrospect, limiting the number of options to reduce underage drinking in their community even further would have resulted in more action. Each group requires an individual approach, but participation by, and assistance for, all those with a commitment to these issues is necessary to reduce underage alcohol problems in the state. As a result, community coalitions offered skill-based trainings to community members, worked with community event organizers to reduce the prominence of alcohol and assisted schools with policy changes to support healthy student and staff behaviors. Additional lessons learned will be discussed.