Effective Prevention in New Jersey

APPLYING THE CADCA STRATEGIES

ENHANCE skills

Tobacco : Implementing a comprehensive youth empowerment program, REBEL (Reaching Everyone By Exposing Lies), in middle, high school and college to teach advocacy skills. Teach youth to recognize the lies of the tobacco industry. Alcohol : Prevention agency provides Life Skills training to all 6, 7, and 8th grade classes, enhancing the teens’ decision-making skills. They also provide Responsible Beverage Server Training to retailers in the community to reduce sales to underage youth.

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provide support

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Tobacco : Promote no-cost/low-cost tobacco cessation programs for youth and adults. Alcohol : Community recreation centers host drug-free activities for youth each night and provide adult mentoring opportunities for teens.

Reflecting back to our prevention parable story, we need to look upstream at the risk factors in play among youth, families and communities to determine why people are falling into the river. Once the risks have been identified, strategies need to be implemented to create a supportive environment with programs, policies and initiatives that reduce the risks. Tobacco use and underage drinking are reasons why youth fall into the river, but over the last 20 years, prevention efforts have reduced youth use rates significantly with evidence-based, multi-strategy approaches. Prevention is more than “providing information” and is a comprehensive public health model which combines individual, family and community-based strategies that work together. These combine to improve individual knowledge, attitudes and behaviors as well as change policies and laws that positively impact the environment in which youth live, learn, and play. Looking upstream at the individual and community risk factors -and working to improve them before more serious problems occur - is what makes prevention work. The CADCA strategies guide prevention efforts to address these issues in a coordinated and comprehensive approach to make true community change that “builds stronger fences” to reduce the number of youth falling into the river. Here are examples of strategies within each CADCA Strategy category that have been utilized to reduce the use rates and community impact of youth tobacco and alcohol use.

While all of these efforts prevent people from falling in the river, their impact is largely confined to those who live in the community currently and are not long-term or sustainable. The following environmental strategies make population-level change for both current and future residents.

Access & Barriers Tobacco : Increase Medicaid and other insurance coverage for Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) medications and access to over-the-counter NRT options. Alcohol : Prevention agency provides transportation to a Strengthening Families Program to allow easier access to evidence-based programs.

change consequences

Tobacco : 2007 Motion Picture Association restricts tobacco use in films; Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement holds tobacco industry accountable for the health impact of their products and also creates numerous limits around product advertising. Alcohol : Law passes that increases fines for the sale of alcohol to minors which deters retailers and bars from selling to minors and increases their compliance efforts to avoid the fines.

provide information

Tobacco : Youth education on the dangers of tobacco use highlighting early findings from the Surgeon General’s report and the tobacco industry’s manipulation of teens. Alcohol : Coalitions host Town Hall meetings and highlight the dangers of underage drinking with data on current teen alcohol use in the community.

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