Virginia Coalition Contributes to Community-Wide Underage Drinking Decline

When the surgeon general talked, Roanoke coalition members listened. And, they implemented. And, they changed.

When alcohol use was found to be on the rise among middle school students, the Roanoke County Prevention Council collaborated to respond to the 2007 Surgeon General’s Call to Action on Underage Drinking. The southwestern Virginia coalition took its number one substance abuse problem, adolescent drinking, and reduced numbers significantly.

The increased alcohol use among county middle school youth from 2004-2006 appears to have reversed and is now beginning to decline, said Nancy Hans, the Council’s Coordinator.

“We had been so much more focused on high-schoolers before,” she said.

High school students haven’t been neglected in the coalition’s efforts, however. A local judge hosts a ceremony for youth and family before they receive their drivers license with the keys going first not to the teen, but to the parent or guardian so a dialogue about impaired driving can continue at home.

When the council’s Drug-Free Communities grant goal during its first six years had been to achieve a 10 percent change in the past 30-day alcohol use from 2002-2008, they didn’t even realize at the time that implementing environmental and policy changes would almost double their original goal.

By working with parents, educators, local government, alcohol retailers, law enforcement, and even pediatricians, the coalition has changed community norms and made alcohol harder to get, Hans said.

And that prevention message starts at home, Hans said, herself a former Maryland school teacher and mother of two grown children and one teenager.
“Our youth are drinking too much, too soon — and this shouldn't be the norm,” she said.

During sixth grade mandatory school checkups, for example, the coalition trained more than 100 pediatricians to discuss binge and underage drinking with their young patients making substance use and abuse a health message first.

Hans said, despite all of the coalition’s success in reducing Roanoke’s underage drinking rates, their biggest challenge is similar to many coalitions’ around the country: Obtaining the parent buy-in, but Hans thinks that is changing positively.

“It’s still one of these things adults say is a rite-of-passage. How much more do we know now that we didn’t know when my children were younger to protect our youth?” Hans said. “What drives me is that it’s really all about keeping our kids healthy and safe. You can’t argue with that.”

The coalition has kept up with their culturally-evolving community by producing bilingual educational materials such as their Silence Isn’t Golden fact sheets for parents, clinicians and merchants. The coalition is also collecting data to find out where all children, insured or not, are receiving their health care so more pediatricians will be able to share the prevention message one-on-one with children and their families.

“When you’re partnering, if there are ways to connect that you not only hear it but you see it, then it gels,” Hans said.

The Roanoke County Prevention Council was recently named one of CADCA's Got Outcomes! Coalition of Excellence award winners. The coalition won in the “Coalition in Focus” category for developing a plan to reduce the accessibility of alcohol to youth, change the community norms of adolescent alcohol use, and delay the age of onset of alcohol use among middle-school students. Their efforts also contributed greatly to declines in alcohol use among high school students.