Use of an adapted version of the community readiness assessment to examine the current state of alcohol prevention in communities in Spain and Portugal

Background: To date, family and community-based interventions for alcohol prevention are less developed than school-based programs. FERYA is a community-focused program that takes advantage of parent organizations to boost intervention activities targeting alcohol use at the local level. It is designed to train parents to be proactive agents for prevention and to achieve impact at three levels: the family, the community, and the social-political level. In the EPOPS (Empowering Parents’ Organizations to Prevent Substance use) project, this program was implemented in Portugal and Spain.

Aims: An adapted version of the community readiness assessment (CRA) tool was used to assess the readiness of parent organizations to engage in intervention activities targeting alcohol use related to FERYA in both countries.

Methods: The three dimensions ‘community knowledge of efforts’ (regarding existing programs for alcohol prevention), ‘community climate’, ‘knowledge about the issue’ (of alcohol misuse in the community) of the CRA were assessed in interviews (over the phone and face-to-face) and focus groups with parents attending FERYA, community group leaders, and stakeholders in both pilot sites. In total, 24 phone interviews (n=12 Portugal; N=12 Spain) and ten face-to-face interviews (n=5 Portugal; N=5 Spain) were conducted comparing two experimental sites to one control site in Spain, and one experimental to one control site in Portugal.

Findings and conclusions: At the conference, we will present preliminary results of the CRA, including implications and recommendations for the future development and dissemination of family and community-based interventions for alcohol prevention in Europe.