Summary - Department of Health and Ageing

Some communities have developed coordinated action to foster young people’s healthy
development and prevent harmful drug use. These multi-level programs can be expensive
but they provide an opportunity to target a range of risk and protective factors influencing
young people’s drug use. Research is needed to investigate the feasibility of community
mobilisation in the Australian setting. Published evaluations of these interventions, largely
in the US, are promising but the cost-effectiveness, compared to school-based health
education, needs careful assessment. Evaluations suggest that community mobilisation can
achieve modest short-term reductions in alcohol and cannabis use, and possibly tobacco
use, but there have been no evaluations of effects on other illicit drug use.
There is tremendous potential for existing health services to contribute to broader
community agendas in preventing or reducing harmful drug use by young people,
through modifying developmental risk and protective factors and improving service access.
It is fundamental to ensure that existing services maintain a preventive focus and use
effective methods of engagement.
Few studies have tested the impact of early interventions involving health services on
young people’s drug use. Many studies, mainly from the US, report on the existing practice
of primary health care professionals in preventive screening and health promotion offered
for health-risk behaviours including alcohol, drug and tobacco use; they do not evaluate
the effects of this practice on the drug use of adolescent patients.
Effective training programs can help increase screening by physicians but screening will be
effective only if it is supported by effective interventions to help young people and ways
for clinicians to identify the most effective intervention for each young person.
Moving health service delivery into schools is a potentially important strategy that has
demonstrated benefits in reproductive health, but few studies have evaluated its
effectiveness in reducing drug use.
Some programs include elements of school drug education but rely on health professionals
for coordination and content. Evaluation suggests a positive impact in reducing tobacco
use but the specific benefits of having health professionals involved are unclear.
Screening and brief intervention has emerged as a promising approach for health service
involvement in reducing harmful alcohol use and related problems in university students.
No studies have evaluated impacts on illicit drug use following health service
reorientation. Health services are involved in some interventions targeting young people
with multiple risk factors but the contribution of the health service component would be
difficult to differentiate.
Entry to post-secondary education and/or the workforce, like other major developmental
transitions, can influence alcohol and drug use by young people. Preventive strategies at
this stage include the provision of pre-employment assistance, employment experience,
training or intervention in a post-school training setting. These have the aim of advancing
young people’s health. No evaluation studies were identified examining impacts of such
programs on drug and alcohol use.