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Project Northland: Comprehensive Alcohol Use Prevention for Young Adolescents, Their Parents, Schools, Peers and Communities
Carolyn L. Williams, Cheryl L. Perry, Kian Farbakhsh, Sara Veblen-Mortenson
Objective: Project Northland is an ongoing prevention trial with the objective of reducing underage drinking and related problems. Phase 1 focused on early adolescence and this study describes the multiple interventions, highlighting its parent components. Method: A cohort design was used with sixth graders from 24 school districts (N = 2,351; 97% of the eligible population; 51.3% boys), randomly assigned to intervention or reference condition. Phase 1 ended in eighth grade (N = 1,901; 81% retention rate). Both demand and supply reduction guided the interventions. This study examined Project Northland's impact using MMPI-A scales assessing clinical problems related to adolescents' alcohol and other drug use (Alcohol/Drug Problems Proneness scale; Alcohol/Drug Problems Acknowledgement scale), as well as MMPI-A scales related to school functioning (Adolescent-School Problems Content scale; Adolescent-Low Aspirations Content scale) and family functioning (Adolescent-Family Problems Content scale). Results: Results showed significant reductions on the MMPI-A Proneness scale for those exposed to the interventions. The greatest program effects were among baseline nonusers of alcohol. Conclusions: Results suggest that the impact of Project Northland is not only on specifically targeted alcohol and drug use behaviors and their predictive factors, but also on intra-individual and familial factors generally considered precursors of more extensive problem behaviors and more resistant to change. Furthermore, the engaging home-based sixth-grade intervention, the Slick Tracy Home Team Program, is a promising population-based prevention approach that may generalize to other serious problems within a young person's family. (J. Stud. Alcohol, Supplement No. 13: 112-124, 1999)
