New developments in prevention and early intervention for alcohol abuse in youths

This article summarizes a symposium held at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was prepared by the conference co-organizers/co-chairs with substantial input from each of the symposium participants. Increasingly, alcohol abuse interventions focus on preventing alcohol problems or intervening early before risky drinking behavior becomes ingrained. Universal prevention programs have produced no or only modest effects on the drinking behavior of youths. Although some existing targeted prevention programs have proved effective, they have not tapped the full range of potential intervention targets, such as the underlying motivations for alcohol misuse in youths who are at greatest risk. The set of papers presented in this symposium outline exciting new developments in the field of targeted prevention and early intervention programs for adolescent drinking problems, presented by an international panel of researchers. These developments include attention to making interventions relevant to adolescents' lives, focus on personality and motivational factors underlying alcohol misuse, and combining existing cognitive behavioral programs with expectancy challenge and motivational interviewing techniques.