Early results from a school alcohol harm minimization study: the School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project

Aims. The School Health and Alcohol Ham Reduction Project aims to reduce al cohol-related harm by enhancing students' abilities to identify and deal wi th high-risk drinking situations particularly likely to be encountered by y oung people. Design. The SHAHRP study has adopted a quasi-experimental rese arch design, incorporating intervention and control groups and measuring ch ange over a 3-year period. Setting. The study is set in metropolitan, gover nment secondary schools (13-17-year-olds) in Perth, Western Australia. The 14 schools involved in the SHAHRP study represent approximately 23% of gove rnment secondary schools in the Perth metropolitan area. Participants. The sample was selected using cluster sampling, with stratification by socio-ec onomic area, and involves over 2300 intervention and control students from junior secondary schools. Seventy-three per cent (73. 7%) of students compl eted surveys at both baseline and first follow-up. Intervention. The interv ention incorporated evidence-based approaches to enhance potential for beha viour change in the target population. The intervention is a curriculum-bas ed programmeme with an explicit harm minimization goal and will be conducte d in two phases over a 2-year period. Measures and findings. The early resu lts of the study demonstrate initial knowledge and attitude change, predict ed by the students' involvement in the intervention. A surprising impact of the first phase of SHAHRP was the significant difference in alcohol consum ption and harms between control and intervention groups, with the SHAHRP gr oup demonstrating a significantly lower increase in alcohol consumption tha n the control group. Students who were supervised drinkers at baseline and who received the SHAHRP intervention were overwhelmingly represented in the change results. Conclusions. Results from phase one of the SHAHRP study su ggest that classroom-based alcohol education programmemes can reduce ham, p articularly in students who ore supervised drinkers prior to the interventi on.