Reducing Underage Drinking A Collective Responsibility (2004) / Chapter Skim
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II. The Strategy - 5. Designing the Strategy
II. The Strategy - 5. Designing the Strategy
Pages 87-107
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From page 89... ...
To some, a strategy means a focused, sustained commitment to a single approach for accomplishing the desired result: for example, the adoption of a national media campaign designed to dissuade young people from drinking, or to restrict underage access to alcohol, or, a program to raise the price of alcohol through excise taxes. In this view, the important strategic decision would be to decide which of a variety of different policy tools or instruments is likely to produce the largest, most reliable effects at the least cost.
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From page 90... ...
However, this same policy intervention might be expected to have a stronger effect if accompanied by a media campaign designed not only to inform individuals of the new sanctions, but also to mobilize other community organizations to intervene. Or, a high school could decide to "crack down" on drinking in and around schoolsponsored events, but find that its efforts are undermined by parents who are not committed to enforcing the same policies on weekends in their homes.
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From page 91... ...
To say that the committee decided to recommend a portfolio of approaches, however, is not to say that comparative judgments concerning the relative effectiveness of different instruments must be avoided or that individual components of the strategy cannot be implemented independently from the others However, we propose a comprehensive strategy that we believe will be cost-effective based on the notion that several instruments will be reinforced by the addition of other instruments as they help to reach a problem that is missed (or created) by a particular policy or as they provide hedges against uncertainty or opportunities to learn.
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From page 92... ...
alcohol use; · increasing the proportion of youths who are current abstainers and intend to continue to abstain until they meet the legal drinking age; · reducing the intensity (frequency and quantity) of drinking (e.g., heavy drinking)
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From page 93... ...
Some policies aim to discourage initiation by young teens or preteens; others aim to reduce the prevalence of any drinking in a high school population; and others aim to reduce the number of occasions when high school students engage in heavy drinking or when they drive after drinking. For the most part, the current policy evaluation literature does not compare the effectiveness of different policies or interventions.
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From page 94... ...
Assessing Costs Even if a program is effective on some relevant outcome measure, it still might not be worth implementing if its cost is excessive in relation to the benefits achieved, or if the same benefits can be achieved by a less costly intervention. How, then, does one measure the cost of policies to reduce underage drinking?
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From page 95... ...
All other things being equal, people in the United States usually prefer a policy that uses less coercive authority -- that takes away less personal liberty -- than a policy that achieves the same result with more coercive authority. As a result, when looking at alternative strategies for reducing underage drinking, it is important to try to account for the amount of coercive authority that is being used and treat its use as a cost in roughly the same way that the expenditure of public money is treated as a cost.
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From page 96... ...
requires evidence from experimental and quasi-experimental research. As noted in Chapter 1 and further discussed in subsequent chapters, the effects of some policy interventions bearing on underage drinking (e.g., increasing the minimum drinking age to 21)
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From page 97... ...
How strong does the evidence bearing on effectiveness have to be to justify an intervention of this particular type in light of its likely range of costs? In making these judgments and designing the proposed strategy, the committee has been guided by several general considerations: · In dealing with complex social phenomena, such as underage drinking, comprehensive, multipronged strategies usually work best.
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From page 98... ...
One possibility is that the level of underage drinking is nearly always more or less proportional to all drinking in the society: if adult drinking changes, underage drinking changes; if adult drinking does not change, underage drinking does not change very much, even with specific policies that try to discourage underage drinking while leaving adult drinking untouched. The implication of this analysis is that the only effective way to reduce underage drinking is to reduce the level of adult drinking; it would accordingly raise complex questions about the strength of the public commitment to reduce underage drinking.
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From page 99... ...
The committee decided that it would focus on policies specifically aimed at underage drinking, but that it would not close its eyes, categorically, to policies that affect all drinking. Instead, we have carefully reviewed the evidence regarding the effects of general alcohol policies on underage drinking and have included in our proposed strategy one of these general components (raising excise taxes)
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From page 100... ...
This trend in implementation of minimum drinking age laws mirrors the national trend in declining alcohol prevalence among youth. Furthermore, research demonstrates a clear relationship between increases in the minimum drinking age and reduced rates of drinking (Wagenaar, 1981; Wagenaar and Maybee, 1986; O'Malley and Wagenaar, 1991; Klepp et al., 1996; Yu et al., 1997)
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From page 101... ...
Many school districts have offered classroom interventions, the alcohol industry has included a "drink responsibly" message in many of its ads and implemented a variety of other programs, various state and national agencies and nonprofit organizations have implemented interventions aimed at reducing use and have developed and disseminated a variety of informational materials, and grassroots community organizations have carried out diverse efforts. Absent some new intervention, there is no reason to expect any further substantial decline.
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From page 102... ...
. Availability The major actors in any effort to reduce underage access to alcohol are the people and businesses engaged in the commercial production and distribution of alcohol: producers and importers of alcoholic beverages, whole
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From page 103... ...
103 of demand. and and and Drinkers Individual Propensities Individual Perceptions Risks Benefits Alcohol Locations for availability Residences Underage Private Demand Cultural Ideas About Drinking Among opportunities; Other Places and and (e.g., Opportunities Public Parks Underage Alcohol and Privately Constructed Social Opportunities for Drinking parties)
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From page 104... ...
In principle, state control over distribution provides an opportunity for the state to achieve important social goals other than maximizing sale of alcoholic beverages, including keeping alcohol out of the hands of underage drinkers. It is also worth noting that an important source of supply to underage drinkers is not the commercial sector; instead, it is the diversion of alcohol from stocks kept in private homes to support adult drinking.
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From page 105... ...
Table 5-1 summarizes the collective responsibilities of the full array of individuals and organizations in a position to reduce underage drinking. Key Components Within this broad framework the committee has identified ten core components of the proposed strategy to reduce underage drinking: · a national media campaign designed to animate and sustain a broad, deep, societal commitment to reduce underage drinking, to muster support for actions aiming to reduce underage drinking, and to encourage parents and other adults to refrain from conduct tending to encourage or facilitate underage drinking (see Chapter 6)
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From page 106... ...
; · a commitment by the federal government to implement a national strategy to prevent and reduce underage drinking, to provide stable funding and technical assistance, and to mount the necessary surveys to monitor its effectiveness, and an analogous commitment by state governments to establish and fund the necessary infrastructure to implement state-based components of the strategy, such as enforcing access restrictions (see Chapter 12) ; · increases in federal and state excise taxes on alcohol to help reduce underage consumption, reflect the social costs of drinking, and raise revenue for implementing the proposed strategy (see Chapter 12)
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From page 107... ...
In fact, implementation of the strategy requires the involvement of a range of decision makers from a variety of settings and levels of government, all of whom will be acting on different timetables with different constraints. Action on any one component should not be regarded as contingent on simultaneous action on any or all of the other components of our proposed strategy.
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Key Terms
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