An effect evaluation of the enforcement of the age ban on adolescent alcohol consumption and the additional value of a community intervention

The last decade there has also been a considerable increase in the alcohol consumption of Dutch adolescents. Presently they drink more often than adolescents in any other European country. The drinking pattern is characterized by a high frequency of binge drinking, frequent intoxication and about 75% or more of the consumption takes place in the context of going out with friends. Also adolescents too young (<16 year) to be legally sold alcohol to, go out regularly and buy their own alcoholic beverages. In the Netherlands there are as yet no projects allowing evidence based conclusions about the effectiveness of legal and other measures limiting the possibilities of adolescent to misuse alcohol. The proposed project aims to decrease the alcohol consumption of under age adolescents by (a) intensified control of sellers’ compliance with the law forbidding to sell alcohol to adolescents younger than 16 year and (b) by a community intervention aimed at mobilizing support among relevant civil servants and professionals and parents of adolescents for measures restricting opportunities for adolescents to drink and to get drunk. The intensified control of compliance of sellers with relevant alcohol laws will be carried out by the national organization responsible for inspecting the compliance with these laws: the Food and Consumers Safety Authority (FCSA). This organization gives out warnings and fines a seller if compliance is insufficient. There will be a two year period in which relevant sellers in a region will be visited about 8 times by inspectors of the FCSA. In a control region there will be only one exploratory inspection (not followed up by warnings and fines) in this period to identify the relevant sellers in the control region. The community intervention will be done by the Foundation for Alcohol Prevention (STAP). In this context media advocacy aimed at the local media will be used , a training course to increase expertise of relevant civil servants and professionals will be given and a support group of parents who will develop initiatives both at home and in the public sphere, will be instituted. The increased enforcement and the concrete additional measures in the context of the community intervention are planned for a period of 2 years. The interventions are evaluated by following a cohort of adolescents, one of their parents and sellers of alcohol. The cohorts of adolescents, the parents and sellers of alcohol will come from three regions: 1 region with no intervention, one region with (only) intensified control of sellers and 1 region with both intensified control and a community intervention. The adolescents will be initially 13-15 years old. They will be interviewed before the intervention start, and one respectively two years after the intervention(s) have started . Parents and sellers of alcohol will be interviewed before the intervention and two years later.