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This paper describes the development and impact of an underage drinking reduction program designed and implemented by a South Carolina county sheriff's office with assistance from the county coalition. In December 2017, high school surveys identified family and friends as the alcohol source 82.2% of the time. In Summer 2018, sheriff deputies began visiting with almost all high school seniors, i.e., 1,352 high school senior visits.Deputies reminded parents to not provide alcohol to anyone under 21 years old. School surveys were conducted pre-program (December 2017), during (April 2018 and September 2018) and post-program (April 2020). Comparing the pre-effort results with post surveys found a 22.8% decline in 30-day drinking (p=.01) and a 23.5% decrease in binge drinking (p=.07). As described by Holder et al., the results provide the foundation for replication under controlled research conditions., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Objective: This research evaluated the South Carolina Alcohol Enforcement Team impact for reducing retail alcohol access to underage persons to decrease drinking and driving crashes among that population., Methods: The natural research experiment used interrupted time-series (ITS) analyses of drinking and driving crashes involving under 21-year-old drivers from July 2006 through December 2016 (126-month period = 4,782 Driving Under Influence [DUI] crashes for under 21-year-old drivers, µ = 38 crashes per month). Additional data analyzed included the monthly total number of retail compliance checks (total during 126-month period = 64,954 compliance checks completed, µ = 515.5 checks per month), the average percentage of underage alcohol purchases (total completed during 126-month period = 8,814 purchases, µ = 70 purchases per month), and a calculated measure of the percent of the population under 21 years old exposed to compliance checks each month. We used drinking and driving crashes for 21-year-old and over drivers as a control time series (total number over a 126-month period = 52,180 DUI crashes for 21 and older drivers, µ = 414.1 crashes per month)., Results: The results show a decline in drinking and driving crashes for drivers under 21 when compliance checks increase, and when compliance checks decline, traffic crashes increase. Stable Alcohol Enforcement Team implementation over 78 months produced an overall 18 to 29% decline in such crashes. A visual examination of the crash time series demonstrated that under-21-age-driver crashes declined during the first wave of implementation and increased following a lag when enforcement declined, which provided additional empirical support for a South Carolina Alcohol Enforcement Team impact on retail alcohol availability. An ITS analysis of the prestable period compared to the stable period was statistically significant (T = -3.78, p < 0.001). A cross-check of these results using single-vehicle nighttime crashes using identical Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average models was also statistically significant (T = -8.18, p < 0.001)., Conclusions: This longitudinal study provides strong evidence of sustained reductions in alcohol availability to underage youth can subsequently reduce alcohol-related traffic crashes. Reductions found in this study continued over several years, considerably longer than any previous equivalent research has shown., (© 2020 by the Research Society on Alcoholism.)

We tested the generalizability of a science-based community prevention design to reduce DUI crashes. Previous researcher-led studies have confirmed the effects of an intervention design of visible enforcement coupled with heightened public awareness of enforcement to increase driver perception of likely detection for drinking and driving. A community coalition based the project on a prevention intervention model that included two key intermediate variables: levels of visible enforcement and of public awareness of enforcement. We evaluated the project using community-specific monthly time-series measures of DUI crashes and state level trends in DUI crashes, indicators of enforcement, and public attention to enforcement. We devised the evaluation design to determine if an observed trend in DUI crashes declined and to verify if key intermediate variables increased, as stimulated by local efforts. DUI crash analysis documented an upward trend during a pre-trial period from July 2010-December 2011, which matched the upward trend in state DUI crashes. After the local intervention began in January 2012, local DUI crashes began a clear downward trend (average 2013 crashes were 23% lower than in 2012 and a 5-month post-intervention average from 2013 was lower than the equivalent 5-month pre-intervention average). This contrasted with the continued upward state DUI crash trend, with a 2-year increase of 16%. The downward trend in local crashes was associated with an increase in DUI enforcement as well as news stories concerning DUI enforcement that were stimulated by the efforts of the community prevention project. These results confirm the generalizability of two previous community research trials that were conducted with limited or no research resources or leadership. We discuss the importance of controlling for external factors in attributing causation in a local prevention evaluation by confirming both sufficient local prevention efforts and a decline in DUI crashes.