What You Can Do: Introduction

Whether a member of the community, business owner, parent, teacher, policymaker, or health specialist, there are many things you can do to prevent binge drinking in underage youth.

Traditional attempts to reduce underage drinking and associated problems have focused on changing individual substance use behavior through public awareness campaigns, school health education, counseling, and treatment. However, these approaches are undermined by countervailing forces in the environment--while underage and binge drinking education campaigns stress the dangers of alcohol use, advertisers and the media portray drinking as “cool,” fun, sexy, and glamorous. Social attitudes and behavior that treat youth drinking as a rite of passage, place a lower priority on enforcing alcohol policies, and equate socializing with alcohol consumption, often to excess, send mixed messages and weaken prevention efforts.

Young people report they have easy access to alcohol, either buying it themselves or getting it from adult providers, yet, there are many things that you can do to prevent underage binge drinking. The present and future repercussions for youth of binge drinking are serious.  As you navigate these pages, concrete tips and strategies are provided for what you can do, from each of the following perspectives, to help prevent underage binge drinking:

• Community member
• Parent
• Agency
• School

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