ABSTRACT

The Upper Peninsula Community Coalitions for Substance Abuse Prevention (UPC) is a partnership of Marquette, Delta-Menominee, Luce-Mackinac-Alger-Schoolcraft and Chippewa County Health Departments, and the Marquette County Sheriff's Department developed to pursue a common goal of altering alcohol use patterns of people of all ages (e.g., drinking and driving, underage drinking, binge drinking) and reducing related problems.  The project involves refocusing the mission and goals of six local community substance abuse coalitions in the central and eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan (8 Counties) to implement environmental interventions which have been researched and shown effective to reduce alcohol use, especially in youth and young adults ages 12 through 25.  The local programs will use a set of five environmental interventions including:

• Community mobilization:  Focus media attention on the cause of high rates of drinking and driving accidents/deaths; snowmobile deaths; drownings; underage drinking; and acute health problems; and the need for the following four components.

• Community awareness:  Binge Drinking rates for the region are up to 20% higher than State averages.  This behavior leads to unintended sever health consequences.  The project will work to change the cultural acceptability of binge drinking to one that promotes the responsibilities of communities and individuals for healthy lifestyles.

• Responsible Beverage Service (RBS):  Through training and testing, RBS assists alcohol beverage servers and retailers in the development of policies and procedures to reduce intoxication and driving after drinking.

• Preventing underage alcohol access:  Reduces youth access to alcohol by training alcohol retailers and those who provide alcohol to minors, including parents and young adults ages 21 and over, regarding their legal responsibilities and increasing enforcement of underage alcohol sales laws.

• Enforcement:  Increases actual and perceived risk of arrest for driving after drinking through increased law enforcement and the adoption of local community policies that reduce exposure to alcohol use among youth.

Target Population:  Each of the six coalitions will focus their efforts utilizing the five interventions on all residents in the eight rural U.P. counties (population: 204,755) with particular attention on youth ages 12-25 (population: 40,500)

Benefits:  The project will bring about:  Mobilization of community members and key policy makers;  Reductions in intentional and unintentional alcohol-related injuries and violence;  Increased enforcement of drinking and driving laws;  Decreased formal and informal youth access to alcohol;  and Responsible alcohol beverage service and sales policies.

Evaluation:  Data collected as part of the evaluation will include:  A community telephone survey of self reported measures of alcohol use and drinking and driving;  Traffic crash records;  Emergency room surveys;  Intoxicated patron and underage decoy surveys;  Local news coverage of alcohol related topics.  ATOD youth survey information is also collected.