Underage drinking is a serious public-health issue in the United States, contributing to the deaths of approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 each year.  With the average age of first use now estimated at about 14, clearly many kids start experiementing with alcohol before they're ever exposed to prevention programs.

But sociologists Stephen Kulis and Scott Yabiku are part of an ASU team whose reearch shows that even for middle schoolers who have started drinking, classroom based intervention programs can help them change course.  The promising findings were published this spring in the leading journal for drug abuse prevention research, Prevention Science.

Kulis, a professor in the School of Social and Family Dynamics, and Yabiku, an assistant professor along with colleagues from the School of Social Work, assessed the effectiveness of an intervention program on 1,364 children in 35 Phoenix middle schools.  In a pre-test, the subjects had reported using substances in the previous 30 days.

The educational program developed by the researchers is called "keepin' it REAL" named for the drug-refusal skills it teaches: refuse, explain , avoid, leave.  The program is unique in that the curriculum is culturally rounded, teaching kids strategies for refusal that incorporates specific values and practices in Mexican-American, European-American and African-American cultures.

Compared to controls, students in the program reduced their alcohol use at a 72 percent higher rate and they discontinued use by 66 percent over a two year period.

"We were excited by the magnitude of the effectiveness of the intervention in reversing students' experimentation with alcohol," Kulis says.  "We were especially encouraged to see that the effects didn't diminish over time and were found in both occasional and frequent users."

Research on substance abuse in adolescents has been focused largely on programs to prevent or delay first use or to treat severe users.  This study argues for broadening the audience for such programs.

"It's clear from our results that greater attention should be focused on young people who occupy the middle ground," adds Yabiku.  "Those who have used substances but haven't yet progressed to serious abuse or addiction."