The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention’s Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF SIG) program sought to improve States’ substance abuse prevention systems and enhance the quality of prevention interventions in their communities. The SPF is a five-step prevention planning model that includes assessment, capacity building, planning, implementation, and evaluation, joined by attention to cultural competence and sustainability.
The California SPF SIG addressed underage and excessive drinking among 12- to 25-year-olds. The primary challenge of the project was to achieve a community-level (whole population) reduction in underage and excessive drinking within one or two years, and demonstrate the effect via rigorous evaluation.
To achieve population-level effects in a short time, the SPF SIG promoted environmental prevention approaches. In California, this meant the adoption of evidence-based alcohol control measures such as enhanced enforcement of laws against serving or selling alcohol to minors, DUI enforcement, greater enforcement of social host or nuisance party ordinances, and a focus on reducing alcohol service to intoxicated patrons. These interventions were presented to the intervention communities in the context of logic models (one for underage drinking, one for DUI reduction) and a summary table of the prescribed intervention components. The hope was that by being specific about the given interventions, communities would be able to accelerate implementation.