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Environmental Strategies
Environmental strategies fall into the categories
of (1) policy adoption, (2) enforcement, (3) communication
and (4) education. These strategies work to change those factors
in the environment, described above, such as norms, media
and availability, in order, ultimately, to change behavior.
Policy Strategies:
Effective policy interventions must focus on the availability
of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. To do so, policy strategies
must use the classic "Four Ps of Marketing" in order
to counter conditions that promote the (1) price, (2) place,
(3) product, and (4) promotion of ATOD products.
Here are some examples of formal policies,
regulations and laws that can be implemented to help reduce
substance use and abuse:
Minimum purchase ages
Increased excise taxes
SUI and "zero tolerance" restrictions
Laws restricting advertising
Bans on cigarette vending machines
Bans on smoking in public buildings
Legal limit of .08 blood alcohol content
Zoning regulations to limit the number of liquor
establishments
Enforcement Strategies:
Examples of enforcement include:
Fining retailers for selling alcohol
or tobacco to minors
License revocation for driving under the influence
Asset forfeiture for selling illicit drugs
Communication Strategies:
Communication can take the form of (1) media
advocacy, (2) social marketing or (3) media literacy.
Media advocacy means using mass
media to advance a public policy message or initiative;
Social marketing uses the principles of commercial
advertising in public service campaigns to make the message
more effective; and
Media literacy is designed to give individuals the
skills and knowledge to analyze and evaluate media messages
critically and to become smart consumers.
Education Strategies:
in order for policy and enforcement to be effective, the public
must know what measures are available to them, and what policies
they are expected to follow. Examples of education include:
Server training programs;
Merchant education programs;
Surgeon General's warning on cigarette packs; and
Media advocacy efforts to increase vendors' perceptions
of the consequences for violating policies.
A subset of education strategies involves
educating opinion leaders. This process entails identifying
those groups that exist in the community, and finding who
among those groups are the opinion leaders. Then, educating
those leaders to be champions of the environmental strategy
you are implementing. This process will help you to move the
policy agenda forward.
Advantages
Compared to prevention strategies that focus
on individuals or families and seek to make changes in one
person at a time, environmental strategies have the ability
to reach entire populations, bringing about behavior changes
among large numbers of people. Environmental strategies:
Are effective and efficient;
Can produce immediate results; and
Are inherently sustainable.
Once in place many environmental strategies
can have immediate effects on availability. Some examples
of this include:
Sales taxes;
Limits on vendor licenses;
Bans on vending machines;
Keg registration; and
Restrictions on happy hours.
Environmental strategies are sustainable.
Changes in the legal, economic and social structures that
affect substance sue foster important shifts in both individual
attitudes and community norms. Over time, this change in the
system leads to fewer opportunities and inducements to use
substances. And, unlike programs directed at individuals,
policy changes don't depend on a constant influx of dollars
to keep them going.
Challenges
But, there are also some challenges inherent
to implementing environmental strategies. They include:
The discomfort some may feel in
challenging the status quo;
It can be challenging to measure the outcomes of
some environmental strategies (e.g., media campaigns);
There may be indirect costs to some environmental
strategies (e.g., lost revenue from alcohol ads at community
events);
There are also direct costs (e.g., new or increased
enforcement efforts); and
It can take more time to implement environmental
strategies because of the degree of mobilization required
to change community readiness to support these strategies.
Community Mobilization
Community mobilization is the key to success
of environmental strategies because these strategies must
be supported by a critical mass of community stakeholders
in order to succeed. Like other prevention strategies, in
order to be most successful, environmental strategies require
a comprehensive community prevention planning process to guide
their selection and implementation.
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