Outcomes from an Alcohol Prevention Trial for Low-income, Ethnic Minority, Urban Youth: Project Northland Chicago

Project Northland, a multi-component alcohol use preventive intervention, was adapted, implemented and evaluated in 61 Chicago public schools and surrounding neighborhoods. Neighborhoods were randomly assigned to intervention or control condition. A cohort of 5811 students, beginning in 6th grade, received three years of intervention strategies and participated in yearly surveys to measure drinking. The cohort is primarily African American, Hispanic and low-income. Variable-centered analyses, testing the difference between the average alcohol use trajectory by condition found no statistically significant differences between the intervention and control groups. However, multilevel general growth mixture modeling (a person-centered analytical approach) revealed positive intervention effects among the entire sample and especially among African American boys. For the entire sample, students in the intervention condition were more likely to be in the no-use trajectory class than in the early-onset-of-infrequent-use class compared to students in the control condition. African American boys in the intervention were more likely to be in the no-use trajectory class than in the early-onset-of-infrequent-use and heavy-use trajectory classes compared to African American boys in the control condition. Additionally, the ability to purchase alcohol by young appearing buyers was reduced in the intervention communities compared to the control communities. Findings suggest that it was feasible to successfully adapt a multi-component intervention for an urban area and that the Project Northland Chicago intervention was successful in preventing onset of alcohol use, especially among African American boys.