NCJ Number
206646
Journal
Addiction Volume: 99 Issue: 3 Dated: March 2004 Pages: 278-291
Date Published
March 2004
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This article presents evaluation results for the School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Programme (SHAHRP), a secondary school-based intervention that attempted to minimize the harm caused by alcohol consumption among young Australians.
Abstract
Alcohol consumption among Australians between the ages of 14 and 19 years is high, with between 66 and 83 percent of young people consuming alcohol to adult-defined levels of hazardous consumption. School programs have played an integral role in community responses to alcohol and drug problems among youths. The SHAHRP intervention program was designed to reduce alcohol-related harm in secondary school students. It is an evidence-based intervention model that employs a curriculum program conducted in two phases over a 2-year period. The evaluation employed a longitudinal design with a quasi-experimental, intervention component. SHAHRP students were compared with non-SHAHRP students over a 32-month period that involved measures assessed at baseline, 8 months, 20 months, and 32 months. The assessments measured knowledge of alcohol, attitudes toward alcohol, total consumption, risky consumption, context of alcohol use, and alcohol-related harms or risks associated with the student’s own use and with other people’s use. The sample included 1,111 randomly selected SHAHRP students and 1,232 comparison students. The retention rate over the course of the 32 month observation was 75.9 percent. Results revealed that the SHAHRP group had significantly greater knowledge during the two program phases than comparison subjects. Additionally, SHAHRP participants displayed significantly safer alcohol-related attitudes than their counterparts up to the program follow-up, but by 32 weeks, scores of both groups converged. SHAHRP participants were more likely to be non-drinkers or to be supervised drinkers than comparison students, with SHAHRP students consuming 31.4 percent and 31.7 percent less alcohol than comparison students during phases 1 and 2 of the intervention, respectively. However, differences in consumption amounts between the two groups began converging 17 months after program delivery. Through all three follow-up periods, SHAHRP participants experienced 32.7 percent, 16.7 percent, and 22.9 percent reduction in harm associated with their own drinking behavior respectively. These findings support the continued use of school-based harm reduction programs to combat alcohol and drug abuse among Australia’s youth. Limitations of the evaluation include the fact that the comparison group received education on alcohol, reducing the possibility of finding an intervention effect. Figures, tables, references