Analysis of Effective Strategies for Alcohol Misuse Prevention: Report

This report analyzes strategies for preventing alcohol misuse, a significant public health issue. It proposes a 3-pronged approach focusing on the agent (alcohol), the individual, and the environment. The report examines universal and selective prevention programs, including school-based and col...Read More

Health Behavioral Response
Health Behavioral Response
This report scrutinizes the given ideas and share newer insights that allows
synthesizing informations into a newer perspective. From the given paper it is
understood that alcohol misuse is a significant public-health issue that requires
emergent strategies.
A public-health perspective suggesting a 3-pronged approach can also be used
in effective alcohol-prevention programs. It involves a clear focus on the agent (i.e.
alcohol), the person and the environment with the interactions among these 3-concepts.
The prevention programs can be either Universal- focusing on the entire population
and/or Selective- focusing on particular groups (as college students) (Kelly-Weeder,
2011).
The selective approach is found to be highly effective as it focuses only on the
particular group and the interventions can be targeted equally. Under this, the school-
based interventions covering a large number of students can be targeted to prevent the
use of alcohol (agent), create awareness (in person) and inculcate societal values in
them. It is evidenced in the study conducted by Caria (2011) indicating a significant
reduction in alcohol-related problems through this approach. Additionally, the college-
based interventions that include raising the alcohol’s cost, limiting the density of alcohol
retailers as well as increasing the enforcement of legislation as zero-tolerance laws can
be employed. The individual interventions (brief-motivational techniques) are proved to
be highly-effective (Hingson, 2010).

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Family-based programs given both in the schools and home for at-risk children
can be worthy. The workplace-based programs are also important because a review
conducted by Larson (2007) indicated that 8.8% full-time employees are heavy drinkers
and should be target. .
Community-based interventions involves varied prevention strategies that focus
on altering the environment in which the individual drinks, individual consumer, alcohol
vendors, societal events, localized agencies and medical facilities. The societal-
interventions should include: regulating the marketing as well as availability of alcohol;
enacting adequate drink-driving policies; enhancing accessible care for alcohol-use
disorder-persons and conducting screening and brief-interventions programmes for
hazardous drinking (WHO, 2018). This three-pronged intervention could be an effective
prevention strategy for alcohol misuse disorder.
Reference
Caria, M.P., Faggiano, F., Bellocco, R & Galanti, M.R. (2011). EU-Dap Study Group
Collaborators. Effects of a school based prevention program on European
adolescents' patterns of alcohol use, J Adolesc Health, 48(2):182–188.
Hingson, R.W. (2010). Magnitude and prevention of college drinking and related
problems, Alcohol Res Health, 33(1):45–54.
Kelly-Weeder, S., Phillips, K & Rounseville, S. (2011). Effectiveness of public health
programs for decreasing alcohol consumption, Patient Intell, 11(3): 29–
38. doi: 10.2147/PI.S12431

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Larson, S. L., Eyerman, J., Foster, M.S & Gfroerer, J.C. (2007). DHHS publication nr
SMA 07-4273. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration; 2007. Worker substance use and workplace policies and
programs. Retrieved from http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/work2k7/work.pdf.
WHO. (2018). World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-
room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol