Approximately 1,000 inquiries were made to federal, state and local agencies, the alcohol beverage industry and private sector organisations actively pursuing educational, prevention, enforcement and training efforts to prevent underage drinking. Special emphasis was placed on retail programs of practices. Comprehensive information was sought on underage drinking; seller/server training, drinking and driving, programs or policies of law enforcement that help to ensure compliance with ABC laws and regulations, programs on fake of falsified IDs, policing establishments, assistance programs (financiel or otherwise), plus conferences, seminars, workshops and advertising/public relations programs. More than 175 programs and practices from across the United States and Canada were received by the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association NABCA in response to the inquiries. After detailed follow-up to ensure inclusion of government, health, industry, regulatory and safety programs, a second contact was made with the participating organizations requesting examples of their program materials for purposes of review. The research phase was finalized with publication of all programs collected in an indexed binder. NABCA developed nine review criteria to help reveal programs containing the most consistent elements of the project goal. To add an even more important element of credibility to this project, NABCA convened a group of eight alcohol eduction experts from alcohol beverage control agencies across the nation. These experts were tasked with reviewing the programs and, based on the selected criteria, determining which were to be noted as "Best Practices". The committee's selection process was further simplified with criteria matrix, on which they were asked to place a "1" if they believed the specific criteria applied to any extent, and nothing if they believed the criteria did not apply, thus eliminating the possibility of bias. (A)
Samenvatting