Prevention

Prevention of alcohol problems can reduce deaths, injuries, disease and vast social and economic costs. PIRE has been a leader in research that illuminates the nature of alcohol use and problems as well as in research and program development to prevent alcohol problems. Research by PIRE demonstrates that the most effective prevention strategies are those that change the overall alcohol environment, especially through alcohol policies.

PIRE has carried out pioneering work showing the importance of changing the alcohol environment. The Community Trials project, for example demonstrated the effectiveness of changing alcohol availability and deterring drinking and driving and sales to minors in reducing alcohol-related injuries and deaths. The Prevention Research Center is the only NIAAA-funded center to focus on prevention of alcohol problems. Its research includes the study of prevention through changing alcohol availability, workplace regulation and norms, popular culture, and economic factors.

Through its Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center, PIRE's Center for Public Health Improvement and Innovation  has synthesized and disseminated research and program development to prevent youth access to alcohol, with a focus on changing community environments and deterring sales to minors.  PIRE has also helped to develop and evaluate school- and family-based prevention programs for children and youth.

The PIRE Public Services Research Institute  (PSRI) is preeminent in the nation in designing and evaluating interventions for impaired driving. Researchers currently working at PSRI have been examining prevention strategies for safety risks involving alcohol for more than four decades.

PIRE-Santa Cruz examines and develops public policies on alcohol prevention, including providing support for the Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS), a national database of laws and enforcement policy, for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

See also 

• Alcohol > Underage Drinking