Examining the influence of the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) program on alcohol-related outcomes in five communities surrounding Air Force bases.

In 2006, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) awarded discretionary grants to five communities as part of the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) initiative to implement an environmental strategy approach to reduce drinking and associated misconducts among Air Force members. The evaluation design was a within-site, pre-test/post-test intervention comparison of baseline data to out-year data. Four of the five communities had significant decreases in one or more of the outcomes of interest from pre-test to post-test. Two communities (Great Falls, MT and Tucson, AZ) had a significant decline in the compliance check failure rate of local establishments that sell alcohol. One community (Great Falls, MT) had a significant decline in arrests for possession of alcohol by a minor. Four communities (Great Falls, MT; Tucson, AZ; Phoenix, AZ; Honolulu, HI) had a significant decline in DUI/DWI arrests. These findings build on results reported in an earlier article which provided evidence to suggest that the EUDL program had an influence on self-reported drinking behaviors in three of the five communities. These two articles, in combination, provide evidence to suggest for the first time that community-level programs using an environmental strategy approach can be successful in targeting military members.

Relationship of military deployment recency, frequency, duration, and combat exposure to alcohol use in the Air Force.

OBJECTIVE: With today's new military deployment environment, characterized by more frequent and longer deployments, significant attention has focused on the effects of deployment on problem behaviors, including alcohol use. The current study examined the relationship between aspects of deployment and alcohol use. METHOD: The data for the current study were collected as part of the Air Force Community Assessment survey, an anonymous Web-based survey of Air Force members. The survey was administered to a stratified random sample of 56,137 active duty Air Force members across 80 bases worldwide; 78% were male and 22% were female. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test measured the rate of alcohol problems. Deployment histories were collected using a series of questions that asked respondents about various aspects and characteristics of their recent deployments. RESULTS: Logistic regression was used to examine the impact of various aspects of deployment on problem drinking. After controlling for demographic variables related to the likelihood of problem drinking, both a higher frequency of deployment and a greater total cumulative length of time deployed since September 11, 2001, were associated with a higher likelihood of problem drinking. For each increase in deployment frequency category the odds that an Air Force member was a problem drinker increased by 14%, and for each additional year spent deployed the odds increased by 23%. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate a significant relationship between deployment and problem drinking. However, most members who deployed multiple times remained resilient. This points to the need for future research on protective factors that foster resiliency.

Reducing drinking among junior enlisted Air Force members in five communities: early findings of the EUDL program's influence on self-reported drinking behaviors.

OBJECTIVE: In the fall of 2006, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention awarded discretionary grants to five communities in four states as part of the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws initiative. These 3-year grants were designed to support implementation of a set of interventions using an environmental strategies approach to reduce drinking and associated alcohol-related misconducts among active-duty Air Force members ages 18-25, with a specific focus on the underage population. The current article presents findings from Year 1 of the evaluation. METHOD: Data on alcohol use were obtained from a large-scale, anonymous survey that fielded in the spring of 2006 (i.e., pretest) and the spring of 2008 (i.e., posttest) from a stratified random sample of Air Force members at five demonstration and five comparison communities. RESULTS: The percentage of junior enlisted personnel at risk for an alcohol problem dropped 6.6% in the Air Force overall during the last 2 years but dropped as much as 13.6% and 9.8% in two Arizona demonstration communities that implemented the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The first-year results suggest that the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws intervention may have been one factor that helped to reduce the percentage of junior enlisted Air Force members at risk for an alcohol problem in the demonstration communities.