Community-based interventions and alcohol, tobacco and other drugs: foci, outcomes and implications

The social, health and economic burdens from alcohol, tobacco and other drugs have impacts globally, national and locally. Effective interventions are needed at each level in order to reduce the extensive harm and attendant costs. This paper examines four topics: options available to the local community, evidence of effectiveness, links between local experiences and national and regional initiatives and implications for future research and intervention. It appears that there are a substantial number of options available at the local level. However, evaluation of them is not standard practice, and the results of the higher quality evaluations indicate that many, but not all, interventions have modest or equivocal impact. There is also not a consistent relationship between local and national interventions, although some themes are apparent: in tobacco control there may be good synergy across jurisdictional levels, for alcohol there is evidence that as national control measures are eroded local communities are encouraged or required to take up these agendas, and with regard to illicit drugs there may be tension between law enforcement priorities at the national level and harm reduction orientations locally. Future initiatives need to have appropriate evaluations as a standardised part of prevention initiatives, and include the development of national databases of what is going on locally. These initiatives should promote national policies that include setting parameters and guidelines, but nevertheless do not dictate specific steps and strategies how to achieve local goals in reducing risk and harm.