A community-based prevention program in western Norway. Organisation and progression model.

This paper presents the organisation, progression, and main findings from a community-based substance use prevention project in five municipalities in western Norway. At the central level, this project was organised with a steering committee and a principal project leader, who is situated at the Department of Health and Social Welfare at the county level. Locally, the way of organizing differed, as one would expect from the community-based model. Top-down/bottom-up strategies can apply both in the way a community organises its efforts, as well as in the relationship between the central project organisation and the participating local communities. It is argued that it can be beneficial for the success of community action programs if one attains a "good mix" between top-down and bottom-up strategies. Factors of importance for such "mix" in the Hordaland project were that the municipalities applied for participation, the availability of economic funding, the venues for meetings between central and local project management, the position of local coordinators, the possibilities for coupling project work to otherwise existing community planning, and the extent of formal bureaucracy.

Radioactive fallout in Norway from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests.

Historical data on radioactivity in air and precipitation samples have been collected and analysed from study sites in Norway. The purpose of the study was to investigate the correlation between air concentration, precipitation and deposition, and identify areas with high deposition. Areas with high precipitation have been compared with monitoring stations in other countries. The base line data contain measurements of total beta in air and precipitation on a daily basis for the period 1956-1982. Radioactive fallout correlated strongly with annual precipitation which varies from 280 to 4200mm per year in Norway. The deposition of 137Cs was calculated to be 3.23+/-1.20kBq/m2 per 1,000 mm precipitation for the period 1955-1975. Also, the relationship between total beta and 137Cs has been investigated, in order to estimate the age of fallout. The age of fallout in Norway ranges from 3 to 9 months during the test periods, which is considerably shorter than the global average, where the mean residence time for debris in the lower stratosphere is estimated to be 1.3 years. There is no evidence of local fallout from tests on Novaya Zemlya reaching Norwegian areas.