Preventing binge drinking during early adolescence: One- and two-year follow-up of a school-based preventive intervention

The authors examined the effectiveness of a school-based prevention program on reducing binge drinking in a sample of minority, inner-city, middle-sch ool students. Rates of binge drinking were compared among youth who receive d the program beginning in the 7th grade (n = 1,713) and a control group (n = 1.328) that did not. The prevention program had protective effects in te rms of binge drinking at the 1-year (8th grade) and 2-year (9th grade) foll ow-up assessments. The proportion of binge drinkers was over 50% lower in t he intervention group relative to the control group at the follow-up assess ments. There were also several significant program effects on proximal drin king variables, including drinking knowledge, pro-drinking attitudes, and p eer drinking norms. These findings indicate that a school-based drug abuse prevention approach previously found to be effective am ng White youth sign ificantly reduced binge drinking among urban minority youth.