Preventing Alcohol and other drugs at the community-level in City of Palmdale, California: Using evidence-based practices & innovative data analysis tools to help inform AOD community-oriented, evidence-based prevention strategies

Early alcohol drinking onset has a potential impact on health and social issues such as violent crime, motor vehicle crashes, early onset of sexual activity, increased school drop-out rates, and premature death. A community-based collaborative between the Los Angeles County Public Health Department and a non-governmental agency was set up to create alcohol risk-free zones around schools, and help guide community-based advocacy in the city of Palmdale, California.  A retrospective, spatial pattern analysis for alcoholic beverage control license violations among 134 alcohol outlets revealed several risk patterns for outlets located within one mile from public schools.  The distribution of outlets and schools was as follows: ZIP code 93550 had 62 (of 134) outlets (46.27%) and the majority of schools (n=25, 56.81 %); ZIP code 93551 had 61 outlets (45.52%) and 9 schools (20.45 %); and ZIP code 93552 had 11 outlets (8.21%) and 10 schools (22.72%). Bivariate associations between the number of schools and alcohol outlet count (by ZIP code) showed a linear fit between them (R square=0.72, F ratio =17.83; p<0.05 alpha level). GIS analysis showed that ABC license violations for the period 2005-2010 were clustered in non-random “hot spots” in ZIP code 93550.  The total number of cumulative violations in that ZIP code was 30 (out of 44), or 68 % of all ABC license violations reported.  This collaborative is now guiding community-based advocacy that can help influence city policy to curb alcohol sales to minors & reduce substance abuse in that city.