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Project Northland is a school-based, alcohol-use–prevention curriculum series that significantly reduces alcohol use and binge-drinking by high school students. It delays the onset of alcohol use, reduces use among youths who have already tried alcohol, and limits the number of alcohol-related problems experienced by young drinkers. The program consists of two phases.
Phase 1 occurs during grades 6–9. The first 3 years (grades 6–8) include a social-behavioral classroom curriculum, parent involvement programs, peer leadership opportunities, and community task forces. A brief five-session classroom program titled Shifting Gears is implemented in ninth grade. The emphases are drunk driving and peer and media pressures to drink. There is no programming for 10th grade.
Phase 2 occurs during grades 11–12. This phase includes parent-involved programs, print media campaigns, peer action teams, community action teams, and a classroom curriculum called Class Action.
Based on the social influences theory of behavior change, the Class Action curriculum uses interactive, peer-led sessions to discuss and debate the consequences of substance abuse, thus changing the social norms around alcohol use and turning negative peer pressure into positive peer pressure. The Class Action intervention develops resistance, decision-making, social competence, and leadership skills. It can be used as part of the Project Northland series or as a standalone program. Results highlighted here (and reviewed by the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices) come from communities that were part of a Project Northland study.
The Class Action curriculum is delivered during 8 to 10 weekly classroom sessions. During the sessions, students are divided into six “legal” teams to prepare and present hypothetical civil cases in which someone has been harmed as a result of underage drinking. Using a casebook, along with audiotaped affidavits and depositions, students build legal cases and present them to a jury of their peers. The six case topics are date rape, drinking and driving, drinking and vandalism, drinking and violence, fetal alcohol syndrome, and school alcohol policies. Class Action encourages community involvement through the use of outside speakers within classroom sessions or for the entire school, student research on alcohol-use issues in their own community, and student involvement in community events (using ideas from Project Northland’s SuperCharged! materials). Parent education involves the distribution of four colorful postcards with key messages for parents about teen alcohol use and their role in preventing it.
Twenty-four school districts were randomized to treatment and delayed treatment (control) groups in 1991. The students in these school districts (n=3,151) were followed from 6th through 12th grades, from 1991 to 1998, and were the study cohort. By 12th grade—in 1998, when the analysis was conducted—the sample consisted of 2,953 students, with 53 percent male, 93 percent white, and 5 percent American Indian. The schools remained in the same treatment conditions through high school. The main outcome measure, alcohol use, came from an annual survey of all the students in the study cohort. The survey consisted of individual items and scales. In addition, process measures were used to assess the degree of fidelity to the intervention. One measure involved young-looking 21-year-old females making purchase attempts at all of the communities’ alcohol outlets throughout the school district.
The multicomponent communitywide approach, targeting high school students’ access to alcohol and changing community norms, appears to have been effective in reducing the growth rate in alcohol use in the intervention communities. The trend data showed significantly less increase in alcohol use among students in the intervention communities, as measured by the Tendency to Use Alcohol Scale, binge-drinking, and (marginally) past-month alcohol use (p<0.07). The Tendency to Use Alcohol Scale incorporates intentions to use alcohol in the future as well as current levels of monthly and weekly use, providing a dynamic measure of alcohol use for this population. The reduction in binge-drinking is particularly important, since underage youths have been shown to engage in more binge-drinking than those of legal drinking age, and binge-drinking is clearly a problem for the younger age group. Additional program benefits include a 33 percent reduction in the usual increase in alcohol use and intentions to use alcohol in high school, through the 12th grade, a 50 percent reduction in the usual increase in binge-drinking during high school (through 12th grade), and an 80 percent reduction in underage alcohol purchases in off-outlets sale (i.e., liquor and convenience stores).
Perry, Cheryl L., Carolyn L. Williams, Kelli A. Komro, and Sara Veblen–Mortenson. 2002. “Community Action to Reduce High School Adolescent Alcohol Use.” The Prevention Researcher 9(3):12–16.
Perry, Cheryl L., Carolyn L. Williams, Kelli A. Komro, Sara Veblen–Mortenson, Jean L. Forster, Randi Bernstein–Lachter, Lara K. Pratt, Bonnie Dudovitz, Karen A. Munson, Kian Farbakhsh, John Finnegan, and Paul McGovern. 2000. “Project Northland High School Interventions: Community Action to Reduce Adolescent Alcohol Use.” Health Education and Behavior 27(1):29–49.
Perry, Cheryl L., Carolyn L. Williams, Kelli A. Komro, Sara Veblen–Mortenson, Melissa H. Stigler, Karen A. Munson, Kian Farbakhsh, Resa M. Johnes, and Jean L. Forster. 2002. “Project Northland: Long-Term Outcomes of Community Action to Reduce Adolescent Alcohol Use.” Health Education Research 17(1):117–32.
Ann Standing, National Education and Prevention Sales Manager
Hazelden Publishing and Educational Services
15251 Pleasant Valley Road
P.O. Box 176
Center City, MN 55012–0176
Phone: (651) 213-4030
Fax: (651) 213-4793
E-mail: astanding@hazelden.org
Web site: http://www.hazelden.org/web/go/projectnorthland
Ann Standing, National Education and Prevention Sales Manager
Hazelden Publishing and Educational Services
15251 Pleasant Valley Road, Box 176
Center City, MN 55012–0176
Phone: (651) 213-4030
Fax: (651) 213-4793
E-mail: astanding@hazelden.org
Web site: http://www.hazelden.org
