CADCA Adds More Research to Coalition Work While Reducing Impaired Driving and Underage Drinking

The results of an innovative project bridging researchers and coalition members will be discussed at CADCA's 21st annual National Leadership Forum workshop "Actively Building Community-Researcher Partnerships: Lessons learned from a NHTSA-Sponsored Project to Promote Collaboration Between Researchers and Communities to Effectively Prevent Underage Drinking and Impaired Driving."

Building successful collaborative relationships between communities and researchers can be difficult to achieve in coalition work. Both groups often have different priorities in what they hope to gain from a research partnership, speak different “languages,” and work in different environments. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been an important supporter of efforts to bridge research and practice. They have funded a ground-breaking project at CADCA to facilitate partnerships between researchers and community coalitions; surface shared research questions, and facilitate the development of fundable research proposals.

Cheryl Neverman, Senior Program Manager for the Impaired Driving Division at NHTSA will discuss her agency’s interest in building community-researcher partnerships to study impaired driving and underage drinking. Mark Wolfson, Professor of Social Sciences and Health Policy at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, will discuss his interests in Community Based Participatory Research and the processes used in his Social Host project to engage coalitions in the development of the research proposal.

Judi Vining, Executive Director of the Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking in Long Beach, New York, served on the Coalition Advisory Group for the Social Host Project. She will provide a coalition’s perspective on the relevance of research to their work, including challenges encountered in engaging with researchers and benefits of these partnerships to improving local substance abuse prevention efforts. One success of this initiative is a study to examine the efficacy of Social Host Ordinances at addressing the problem of underage drinking.

Michael Sparks, Alcohol Policy Expert with CADCA, will facilitate this session.

The objectives of the workshop include learning about federal investment in efforts to bridge the research and practice gap; learning how coalitions can be engaged as active partners in the research process; and understanding how coalition involvement in research can benefit local coalition efforts to address underage drinking.

In the end, the result is helping communities contribute more effectively to reducing youth consumption and drugged and drunk driving, Neverman says.

“To me, the big take-away is that a unique opportunity of bringing that research world and the reality of the community together. So instead of communities or researchers working alone, researchers are also a part of the coalition, and they are there to frame the issue, offer advice, achieve results, and collect the right data,” Neverman says.

“Actively Building Community-Researcher Partnerships: Lessons learned from a NHTSA-Sponsored Project to Promote Collaboration Between Researchers and Communities to Effectively Prevent Underage Drinking and Impaired Driving” will be at CADCA’s 21st annual National Leadership Forum Feb. 7-10.

If you still haven’t made plans to attend CADCA’s 21st annual National Leadership Forum, don’t delay. You don’t want to miss the chance to choose from more than 100 relevant workshops on prevention and treatment and to hear from some of the nation’s leading experts in the fields of substance abuse prevention and treatment, addiction research and substance abuse policy.

The Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center, the site of our Forum in National Harbor, Md., still has some rooms available on a first come, first served basis. Please call them at 301-965-2000 and mention "CADCA" to receive your discounted group rate. The room rate does not increase with additional guests in your room: It's the same rate for one to four people in one room.

To learn more about the workshops at the CADCA Forum, plus exhibitor opportunities, Community Prevention Day, Capitol Hill Day, and other details, please visit CADCA’s Forum website.