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Read about how the communities listed below used their indicator reporting programs to help create local change.
Sacramento County
Sacramento, California
San Diego County
San Diego, California
New Futures
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
East County Community Change Project
San Diego County, California
Drug-Free Marion County
Indianapolis, Indiana
Changing the Landscape is a study of alcohol and other drug use in Sacramento County by the Public Health and Alcohol and Drug Advisory boards. It was presented to the County of Sacramento Board of Supervisors in January, 2001 and details the alcohol and drug problems in the county. The report includes the findings and recommendations to further address these issues.
The Public Health Advisory Board, in cooperation with the Alcohol and Drug Advisory Board and staff from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Community Services Planning Council, and participants from the public and private sector began this study in March of 1999.
There were 20 findings, 10 conclusions, and 10 recommendations included in the report. The first four recommendations were presented to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in July, 2001 who adopted them. The first four recommendations were:
- Establish alcohol and other drug issues (and the negative impact on the quality of life in our community) as one of Sacramento County's highest priorities.
- Recognize that alcohol is the main substance of abuse in the Sacramento community. Alcohol creates the lartgest negative impact on its quality of life.
- Adopt a policy that alcohol and drug related data collection and tracking is an essential county function.
- Support the development of a systematic evaluation and tracking system for perinatal substance exposure.
As recommended in the first edition of Changing the Landscape, the county updates the report on a regular basis. The 2005 edition of Changing the Landscape is available on Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing.
Visit the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services, Alcohol and Drug Services for more information.
In 1997 the county of San Diego initiated a new Alcohol and Drug Prevention Framework which sought to apply science-based prevention activities throughout the county. Part of the framework was the requirement that "evaluation designs shall be integrated into community prevention program activities to measure immediate effects or outcomes, ongoing progress, and long-term improvement of conditions."
The county wanted to measure the effectiveness of the framework at both the provider and countywide level. Adolescent alcohol and marijuana use were specific measures tied to the framework. These two drugs were far and away the most commonly used drugs by youth.
The focus of all county-funded prevention activities was to create environmental changes that would reduce alcohol and drug related problems. San Diego County uses this prevention strategy because it produces the most sustained, effective and comprehensive outcomes to prevent problems related to alcohol and other drug use.
To ensure that the community-based prevention service providers had the resources available to them to meet this task, the County funded a web-based prevention planning and evaluation system - the Quality of Life Evaluation Program. The goal was to ensure that all prevention work - from planning to determining outcomes - was data driven. San Diego County is working to improve this system.
In 2004, San Diego further developed the county's prevention services to address prevention goals and objectives focused on three defined initiatives. The initiatives address the most serious alcohol and drug issues in the county: binge and underage drinking, methamphetamine, and marijuana.
In 1997, New Futures, a nonprofit advocacy organization located in Portsmouth, NH, was created to foster dialogue and action among state and community leaders to support comprehensive approaches to alcohol, tobacco, and drug problems. They have produced three indicator reports. "We Need to Talk - Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Problems in New Hampshire" (1998) raised awareness. "We Need to Act – Alcohol and Youth in New Hampshire" (2000) focused attention on a particular population and recommended strategies for change.
In 2002, New Futures released "We Need Treatment", a report intended to increase support among policy makers, community leaders, and the public for policies that prevent and treat addiction rather than traditional policies that punish those addicted to drugs and alcohol. The report outlines the problem, provides evidence about the need for increased treatment in New Hampshire, and provides specific policy recommendations that could improve the availability of treatment. New Futures divided the report into the following sections to tell their story:
- What We Must Admit: In this section, the report outlines the overall scope of substance use problems in New Hampshire.
- What We Must Accept: The data, quotes, and personal stories in this section show that treatment is effective and recovery is possible.
- What We Must Overcome: This section addresses the stigma against addiction by providing quotes, data, and several graphs highlighting New Hampshire's insufficient treatment services and inadequate treatment funding.
- What We Must Do: Here the report suggests actions steps for citizens, health insurers, employers, criminal justice professionals, people in recovery, and those still suffering from addiction.
"We Need Treatment," along with New Futures' two other indicator reports, succeeded in contributing to statewide policy changes to the treatment system in New Hampshire by passing legislation that:
- Allocated a portion of the profits from alcohol sales for community-based prevention and treatment programs (2000).
- Created a statewide Governor's Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention, Intervention, and Treatment (2000).
- Required keg registration (2000).
- Required health-insurance companies to offer insurance coverage for addiction treatment (2002).
The East County Community Change Project is a project of the Institute for Public Strategies focusing on strengthening alcohol and drug prevention policies in the county. The Project has used several strategies to gather and disseminate information and to create policy changes in San Diego County.
The Project has done some of its own data collection using focus groups of community members, through which they learned about several community conditions that increased easy access to alcohol and drugs. Armed with this information, the Project focused its strategy on an environmental management model of substance use prevention, which includes advancing stronger policies at the institutional, community, and public level.
In addition to asking for community feedback, the project has produced a number of issue briefings and fact sheets on alcohol outlet density and underage drinking. These documents outline associated problems as well as action steps that local municipalities can take to adopt stronger prevention policies.
The East County Community Change Project has also worked closely with local media to share its story and motivate people to take action, prompting several supportive news articles, letters to the editor, radio clips, and flyers.
As a result of these efforts, San Diego County officials proposed a comprehensive set of policies including social host ordinances, responsible beverage service training, mandatory apartment manager training, and Conditional Use Permit (CUP), several of which have been adopted.
A snapshot of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use in Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, shows that the number of 18-34 year-olds accessing treatment services is on the rise. This finding, among many others, is described in a Drug-Free Marion County report, A Community at Risk, commissioned by the organization with technical assistance from the Marion County Prosecutor's office.
"The report was designed to present a picture of what we believe are key indicators on the impact of substance abuse in our community," said Marion County Prosecutor Scott Newman.
Data for the report came from school surveys, health department records and law enforcement statistics. Randy Miller, Drug-Free Marion County Executive Director, highlighted several noteworthy findings:
- Marion County youth use tranquilizers significantly more than the nationwide average.
- Although methamphetamine use attracts a great deal of media attention, marijuana is the illegal drug used most prevalently in Marion County.
- Female arrestees test positive for illegal drugs more frequently than males.
- Drug related deaths reached a five-year high in 2000.
- The number of 18-34 year olds accessing treatment services through the Hoosier Assurance Plan (insurance plan for uninsured or underinsured) is rising.
The report indicates that community involvement can have a positive impact on reducing substance use. "Compliance check results show a decline in the number of retailers selling tobacco to juveniles, and between 1998-2000 there was a significant decrease in cocaine seizures," said Miller. "It's our hope this report will encourage continued community action so that together we can reduce the social, economic and personal impact substance abuse has on our quality of life."
Newman and Miller presented their findings at a press conference, from which they received coverage from all local television stations and one major radio station. Miller also presented the report at a meeting of the county's high-level criminal justice and county officials. He said that they "knew there was a problem, but didn't realize the extent."
Even with the encouraging news contained in the full report, it is clear that the community must work together to adequately address drug and alcohol use. "The reality is that any level of illegal tobacco sales to minors, cocaine seized or other indication of substance misuse is unacceptable," said Miller. | 
