Ac. Wagenaar et al., Communities Mobilizing for Change on Alcohol (CMCA): effects of a randomized trial on arrests and traffic crashes, ADDICTION, 95(2), 2000, pp. 209-217
Citations number
21
Categorie Soggetti
Public Health & Health Care Science","Clinical Psycology & Psychiatry
Aims. We previously reported effects of the CMCA intervention in reducing s
ocial and commercial access to alcohol by youth, and reducing alcohol use b
y 18-20-year-olds. This paper reports on effects of CMCA on arrests and car
crashes. Design. CMCA was a group-randomized trial that implemented and ev
aluated a community-organizing effort to change community policies and prac
tices to reduce youth access to alcohol. Seven Midwestern communities were
randomly assigned to the intervention condition and eight communities were
assigned to the control condition. Intervention. For 2.5 years, a pan-time
community organizer worked in each of the seven intervention communities wi
th local public officials, enforcement agencies, alcohol merchants, the med
ia, schools and other community groups to reduce youth access to alcohol. M
easurement. We collected annual arrest and quarterly traffic crash data for
the years 1987-1995, providing a 6-year baseline and 3 years of data durin
g the intervention. Data were stratified into two target age groups (15-17
and 18-20) and a control group (age 21 and over). Analyses used random-coef
ficient models because we had repeated observations for each unit of assign
ment in a group-randomized trial with heterogeneous trends across communiti
es. Findings. We observed net declines in the intervention communities for
all arrest and traffic crash indicators. The decline was statistically sign
ificant for DUI arrests among 18-20-year-olds and approached significance f
or DUI arrests and disorderly conduct violations among 15-17-year-olds. Con
clusions. Together with previously published results from this study, the r
esults reported here suggest that a community-organizing approach to limit
youth access to alcohol may be effective, at least for selected end-points
and subgroups. We conclude that this approach may be useful, bur that a lon
ger intervention period is required to increase effectiveness.