The earlier you start drinking alcohol, the more likely you are to abuse or become dependent on it when you're older. That's why it's important for parents to help delay their children's initiation into the world of alcohol as long as they can. A new study shows that brief family intervention programs are a cost-effective way to delay teen drinking.

In the study, funded by NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), researchers at Iowa State University assigned families of sixth graders from 33 rural schools to one of two intervention programs or a control group. The programs were the Iowa Strengthening Families Program (ISFP), a seven-session intervention with parents and students, and Preparing for the Drug Free Years (PDFY), a five-session intervention primarily with parents. These programs emphasize healthy family and peer relationships and teach kids skills to resist social pressure to use alcohol. The participants reported their alcohol use themselves, and results were based on 478 families after four years of study.

The researchers found that, between the critical ages of 13 and 16, fewer teens in the two treatment groups started to use alcohol than in the control group. Those in the intervention groups, therefore, are predicted to have fewer problems with alcohol use as adults. The researchers conservatively estimated that preventing a single case of adult alcohol abuse produces an average savings of $119,633 in avoided costs to society. They calculated that the ISFP intervention could save $9.60 in future costs for each dollar invested in the program, and that the PDFY could save $5.85 for each dollar.

Alcohol problems have a great societal cost. According to statistics recently reported in a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) study, the annual economic costs of alcohol abuse in 1998 were about $185 billion. The Iowa State University researchers based their cost-benefit analysis on a more conservative estimate of $148 billion, which limited costs to those associated with factors like lost wages and decreased productivity. Less conservative estimates include the dollar value of less tangible costs - such as pain and suffering - that are also produced by alcohol disorders. If these costs had been factored in, the cost benefit of these interventions would have been even more dramatic. The scientists conclude that family interventions for the general public have the potential to bring considerable social and economic benefits to society.

Edited by Harrison Wein, Ph.D.

- a report from The NIH Word on Health, June 2002
Journal of Studies on Alcohol 63, 2:219-228