Clinical Recommendations
The following clinical recommendations come from the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)
Screening and Behavioral Counseling Interventions in Primary Care to Reduce Alcohol Misuse The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends screening and behavioral counseling interventions to reduce alcohol misuse by adults, including pregnant women, in primary care settings.
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Community Interventions
The following evidence-based community interventions come from the Guide to Community Preventive Services
Decrease the rate of alcohol-impaired driving (.08+ blood alcohol content [BAC]) fatalities
These programs provide education and training to servers of alcoholic beverages with the goal of altering their serving practices to prevent customer intoxication and alcohol-impaired driving. Practices may include offering customers food with drinks, delaying service to rapid drinkers, refusing service to intoxicated or underage consumers, and discouraging intoxicated customers from driving.
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Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Dram Shop Liability
Dram shop liability allows the owner or server of a retail alcohol establishment where a customer recently consumed alcoholic beverages to be held legally responsible for the harms inflicted by that customer. Examples of such harms may include death, injury or other damages as a result of an alcohol-related car crash. Historically, the term dram shop referred to any establishment where alcohol was sold; a dram was a measure of alcohol.
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Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Enhanced Enforcement of Laws Prohibiting Sales to Minors
Enhanced enforcement programs initiate or increase the frequency of retailer compliance checks for laws against the sale of alcohol to minors in a community. Retailer compliance checks, or “sting operations,” are conducted by, or coordinated with local law enforcement or alcohol beverage control (ABC) agencies, and violators receive legal or administrative sanctions.
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Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Increasing Alcohol Taxes
Alcohol excise taxes affect the price of alcohol, and are intended to reduce alcohol-related harms, raise revenue, or both.
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Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Maintaining Limits on Days of Sale
Limiting the days when alcohol can be sold is intended to prevent excessive alcohol consumption and related harms by regulating access to alcohol.
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Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Maintaining Limits on Hours of Sale
Policies limiting hours of sale may apply to outlets that sell alcohol for consumption at the place of purchase (on-premises outlets, such as bars or restaurants) or elsewhere (off-premises outlets, such as liquor stores).
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Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Regulation of Alcohol Outlet Density
Alcohol outlet density regulation is defined as applying regulatory authority to reduce alcoholic beverage outlet density or to limit the increase of alcoholic beverage outlet density.
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Reducing Alcohol-impaired Driving: 0.08% Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) Laws
These laws state that it is illegal for a driver’s blood alcohol concentration to exceed 0.08%.
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Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving: Ignition Interlocks
Ignition interlocks are devices that can be installed in motor vehicles to prevent operation of the vehicle by a driver who has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) above a specified level (usually 0.02% – 0.04%). Interlocks are most often installed in vehicles of people who have been convicted of alcohol-impaired driving to give them an opportunity to drive legally.
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Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving: Lower BAC Laws for Young or Inexperienced Drivers
Lower blood alcohol concentration (BAC) laws establish a lower illegal BAC for young or inexperienced drivers than for older or more experienced drivers.
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Reducing Alcohol-impaired Driving: Maintaining Current Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) Laws
MLDA laws specify an age below which the purchase or public consumption of alcoholic beverages is illegal.
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Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving: Mass Media Campaigns
Mass media campaigns intended to reduce alcohol-impaired driving are designed to persuade individuals either to avoid drinking and driving or to prevent others from doing so. Common campaign themes include fear of arrest; fear of injury to self, others, or property; and characterizing drinking drivers as irresponsible and dangerous to others.
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Reducing Alcohol-impaired Driving: Multicomponent Interventions with Community Mobilization
Multicomponent interventions to reduce alcohol-impaired driving can include any or all of a number of components, such as sobriety checkpoints, training in responsible beverage service, education and awareness-raising efforts, and limiting access to alcohol.
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Reducing Alcohol-impaired Driving: School-Based Programs
School-Based programs to reduce alcohol-impaired driving include: instructional programs; peer organizations such as Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD); and social norming campaigns.
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Reducing Alcohol-impaired Driving: Sobriety Checkpoints
At sobriety checkpoints, law enforcement officers use a system to stop drivers to assess their level of alcohol impairment.
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Worksite Health Promotion: Assessment of Health Risks with Feedback to Change Employees’ Health
This intervention includes an assessment of personal health habits and risk factors; an estimation or assessment of risk of death and other adverse health outcomes; and provision of feedback in the form of educational messages and counseling.
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