Building Community Capacity to Prevent Underage Drinking in Orange County - OP's STOP Project will implement evidence-based prevention strategies to build capacity for underage drinking prevention in Orange County, NC, focusing on youth in grades 6-12. The project will address growing concerns surrounding alcohol and expand the coalition’s efforts through increasing collaboration among community stakeholders and organizations and reducing youth access to alcohol. Orange Partnership (OP) is a community coalition whose mission is to empower youth to identify these risk and protective factors contributing to youth substance use, propose strategies and solutions, and foster a safer and healthier community where all youth can thrive. The coalition has over 60 active members from local youth, substance use prevention organizations, law enforcement, healthcare agencies, community stakeholders, and representatives from two school districts. The proposed project will serve youth in Orange County, North Carolina, an area known for its urban-rural split with two distinct halves: Chapel Hill-Carrboro, in the southern half of the county and home to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough, the county seat surrounded by farmland. Youth under 18 make up 18% of the county population, while 29.6% are under 21. According to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, alcohol remains the most used substance in Orange County by adolescents (2025 OC YRBS). Given the proximity to UNC-Chapel Hill, a school with in-stadium alcohol sales, tailgating, robust Greek life, and large amounts of underage and binge drinking, underage drinking is normalized in the county among adolescents and emerging adults. Students have also identified how easy alcohol is to access while underage because many retailers and event vendors do not follow best practices for alcohol sales. While efforts have been made by the coalition to limit easy access to alcohol, it remains a large problem in the county. Over the course of four years, OP will increase ADAPT youth engagement through the following goals: (1) Increase collaboration among community stakeholders and organizations to address youth substance use and (2) Reduce youth access to alcohol. Objectives for Goal 1 are increasing coalition prevention activities by 20% and increasing community partner engagement in alcohol prevention activities by 10%, as measured by coalition meeting attendance and alcohol prevention initiatives. To address ease of access, OP will decrease youth retail access of alcohol by 10% (measured by purchase surveys and environmental scans), increase number of event organizers and/or sponsors that formally adopt best practices regarding alcohol sales for at least 3 community events (measured by event planner agreements), and increase the number of farm event spaces utilizing safe alcohol use policies by two (measured by signed farmer/landowner agreements). Strategies and interventions used in the project include recruiting and engaging youth coalition members through school-based activities, identifying concerns surrounding underage drinking in coalition meetings and creating a logic model and 12-month action plan, conducting the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) biennially to collect data, holding town hall meetings to identify alcohol prevention priorities, assessing 20 alcohol retailers via purchase surveys or environmental scans, and creating materials outlining best practices for alcohol sales/use at community and bona fide farm events, and in case of social district policy.
