Social Norms

Arbor on Main surveys youth drug & alcohol use

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Social Norms Campaign — Summer 2009

Environmental Prevention
Environmental Prevention is aimed at changing the physical and social conditions that affect an individual’s exposure, influence and risks to alcohol and drugs. Some examples of environmental prevention are limiting drug availability; monitoring advertising, and media portrayals of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. Other strategies could include enforcing existing drug laws, making drug use more difficult in neighborhoods, and providing alternate transportation to intoxicated drivers. These strategies are based on the premise that substance use is a social behavior heavily influenced by the environment in which people live. Prevention efforts must address the conditions that give rise to problematic substance use. Environmental prevention must be tailored to the unique situation in which it is implemented.
PREVENTION-THEMED MURALS will maximize the prevention effect.
The project requires:

1. that each grantee articulates a specific prevention theme for their proposed mural.
2. that each team participate in a one-hour interactive prevention presentation, provided at your site by an AODP Prevention Specialist.
3. muralists and coordinators have the requisite communication skills and ability to engage youth in teachable moments when substance-related issues arise in the course of the mural work.

SUBSTANCE ABUSE includes prevention of binge drinking, marijuana, tobacco and other drug use. It is our goal to increase peers perception that alcohol and other drugs cause harm. Social Marketing is marketing designed to sell healthy behavior by understanding:

1. What behavior the person is being asked to change.
2. What the person is willing to give-up in order to change their behavior.
3. How and where information about this change reaches the consumer.
4. How information about the behavior change is disseminated.

The goal of our projects social marketing is to make healthy, drug and alcohol free lifestyles attractive. Social marketing is promoted to the public with persuasive messages sent through the media that are popular with the target audience and is continually refined on the basis of consumer feedback. At-Risk Youth AODP has adopted the following definition of at-risk youth: Young people who engage in problem behaviors are sometimes referred to as "at risk." These youth often come from harmful living situations or have been unduly exposed to other destructive environments or influences. Though these youth have many strengths, they often adopt attitudes and behaviors that tend to get in their way and make the attainment of success and personal happiness more difficult. For many of these young people, negative outcomes include dropping out of school, teen pregnancy, drug/alcohol abuse, gang activity, violence and crime.