Sober Truth in Preventing Underage Drinking
No. SP-22-006
Arizona Youth Partnership
Copper Corridor Coalition (DFC Grantee)
Project Abstract Summary
The Copper Corridor Coalition is a currently DFC funded coalition and has been in place providing services to Gila and Pinal Counties in Central Arizona since 2016. The Copper Corridor is made up of 7 very rural communities with few to no services available. This program will enhance the efforts of the Copper Corridor by working current stakeholders to reduce commercial and social sources of alcohol to youth and young adults under the age of 21, influence community attitudes and norms about underage drinking, and lower underage use rates. Activities that will be implemented include conducting compliance checks with at least 4 commercial sales locations and providing Responsible Beverage Server training to 25 local servers, enforce current policies and/or creating new policies that affect underage drinking and alcohol restrictions at community events, create media messages that will reach 10,000 people on the consequences of underage drinking, provide alternative activities such as graduation and prom programs for 200 students, provide programming during school and school breaks such as summer leadership conferences to 100 students, youth coalition meetings and youth developed media for online distribution and prints/signage, and programming for parents and community members including distribution of bottle locks and print media through 4 events to 50 community members each year of the program.
The Copper Corridor is located within Gila and Pinal Counties in Central Arizona. It is comprised of 7 rural towns along highways 77 and 177 that has been an important copper mining area for more than a century. As mines have shut down removing economic stability the area still remains dependent on the remaining mines for support. The area is surrounded by national forest, cattle ranches, desert areas and a Tribal Nation. According to the 2019 US Census the total population of these communities was 16,208 with 27.3% of the population under the age of 20. 21% of the persons are living below the poverty level. 56% of the households have 2 parents, 6% have one male parent, and 27% have one female parent. The current racial and ethnic demographics are 56% white, 23% Hispanic or Latino, 5% Native American, 4 % African American, and 5% Other Hispanic.
Youth in Pinal County report using alcohol, binge drinking, that alcohol is easy to obtain, they have a low perception of harm related to youth alcohol use, and they are participating in dangerous behaviors such a riding in vehicles with drivers that have been drinking alcohol. Youth also report they are obtaining alcohol at parties, from home, in local stores, and from their parents. This data obtained from the Arizona Youth survey and Copper Corridor yearly youth surveys has driven the strategic planning of the Coalition to choose the activities that will be implemented in this program.
The coalitions will use the Strategic Prevention Framework to support the activities of this program. This will enhance the support of infrastructure of the community by providing sustainable programs and data systems to lower youth and young adult use of alcohol that will affect current and future community members with short term, intermediate and long-term positive outcomes relating to youth use of alcohol and community norms related to youth use of alcohol.