Dear editor,
You may have heard not long ago about 18-year-old Long Island resident Liam Armstrong racing across subway tracks at the 79th Street subway station when the 2 train struck him.
What you might not remember is that police found alcohol in his blood and in his bag, and this incident put yet another notch on the belt of alcohol-induced teen casualties.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this story, and it won’t be the last. The fascinating and sad fact is that death doesn’t seem to scare youth when warned about the dangers of underage and excessive alcohol consumption. Research on adolescent brain development suggests that the still-developing brain doesn’t really calculate risk as part of decision-making. If death ads aren’t reaching youth, then perhaps youth shouldn’t be the only target?
Partnership for a Healthier Brooklyn at Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation is working with community-based organizations to host focus groups to try to find out what people in our community think about and underage and excessive drinking. Can we utilize community voice and power to foster environmental conditions where access to alcohol for youth is less likely? Alcohol is one of our focus areas, although we are part of a larger initiative to promote healthy communities, funded by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and guided by the citywide Partnership for a Healthier New York City.
Studies show that people between the ages of 18 to 25 are the group most likely to engage in risky behavior. Studies also show that teens were more afraid of getting their license taken away as a result of drunk driving than death. Lastly, after conducting a few focus groups with teens here in Brooklyn, we learned that primary access to alcohol is from friends and corner stores that don’t check IDs. This means that our message cannot simply rely on the developing brain to make the right choice, our message has to reach and empower adults to stop role modeling binge drinking, and stop selling and serving to the underaged.
There are many organizations that work on substance abuse issues, but are we using the right messaging techniques? Are we targeting the right audience? Is our list of facts and numbers any more startling than that of cancer or AIDS? (Side note, alcohol use is associated with cancer and HIV/AIDS.) Is our message memorable, relevant, and convincing? Probably not! Can we learn to be more effective in the fight against underage drinking by focusing on changing environmental conditions that currently foster easy access to alcohol? Absolutely!
To build awareness that is meaningful enough to provoke systems changes in relation to alcohol, we need a two-fold approach. On the one hand, we need to think like savvy advertising and marketing professionals and learn how to make teen life without alcohol more desirable and more normal. On the other hand, our work has to harness the influence of adults to be positive role models and empower communities to shape environmental conditions where youth-targeting alcohol advertisements are scarce, and access to alcohol from corner stores is impossible.
Lina Fedirko, program associate, Partnership for a Healthier Brooklyn at Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation.
