Learning from success: implementation & evaluation of a national program

The WHO - Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC) cross national survey, has monitored changes in youth alcohol use throughout the past 3 decades in over 45 countries in Europe and North America. While Israel has usually shown relatively low rates of adolescent smoking, drinking and drug use, the rates of problem drinking increased dramatically during the years 1994-2009. The rate of binge drinking in P30D for teens aged 11-15 tripled from 6.2% in 1994 to 20.6% in 2009. Findings were cleverly used to impact policy. The scientific evidence were disseminated to the press and targeted parliament and cabinet members. Consequently, the government funded the development and implementation of a comprehensive, long-term national program to reduce alcohol drinking among youth. The program was funded and implemented in three consecutive stages: 2010-12, 2012-14 and 2014-16 and was coordinated by the Israel Anti-Drug Authority. HBSC data were used as the monitoring system of the program. Activities included: implementing a comprehensive national strategy, building partnerships with relevant agencies, developing consistent and coherent messages, implementing national media campaigns, passing and enforcing a host of new legislation, implementing a wide variety of age and culture-specific school programs, and implementing community-based interventions. HBSC findings show that as a result of this national intensive program, binge drinking by Israeli youth dropped from 20.6% in 2009 to 12.4% in 2011, to 10.7% in 2014 and finally to 6.2% in 2019. All in all, binge drinking dropped to about one third of its magnitude in 2009, prior to the implementation of the national program. The paper discusses the unique role of HBSC in identifying a critical increase in binge drinking, influencing decision makers, providing base-line data for the national program and serving as its evaluation system.