Naslov
“The Youth and Early Alcohol Consumption” as the Croatian Healthy Cities Network & national policy makers “learning opportunity”

Autori
Šogorić, Selma, Vuletić, Silvije

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, stručni

Izvornik
Book of Abstracts International Healthy Cities Conference, Athens, Greece 22-25 October, 2014 / Tsouros, A. - Atena : World health Organization, Regional Office for Europe, 2014, 162-163

Skup
International Healthy Cities Conference

Mjesto i datum
Atena, Grčka, 22.10.2014. - 25.10.2014

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Poster

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
youth; early alcohol consumption

Sažetak
This abstract is so called negative case or preferably “learning opportunity”. It stressed, one again, the necessity of communication and coordination at all levels, necessity to evaluate interventions (as successful in both theory and practice) and their leaders before implementation and involve end users (in our case children and youth) in planning and taking future course of action. Healthy counties or “Health - Plan for it” training program in Croatia (2002 – 2014) provided support to the counties to assess population health needs in a participative manner, to set priorities, to plan for health, and, ultimately, to ensure the provision of responsive, high quality services. Priorities selected by the majority of the county’s health teams reflected main national challenges and were addressed, jointly, through action research. From 2005 to 2013 research had been carried out by the CHCN on elderly care policies, the causes and consequences of youth early drinking, the quality of health services, palliative care, and most recently, the needs of the single-parent families. This joint research aim to improve counties/cities ability to detect and respond to the specific groups needs with the effective interventions. By the end of 2005 early alcohol consumption among young people was selected as priority by twelve Croatian cities and counties. In 2006 multidisciplinary local teams were gathered on training that enabled them to apply quantitative-naturalistic approach in order to identify alcohol-related behavioral patterns of young people in their community. During 2007, based on gained results they had to identify possible interventions and apply them by the end of 2008. Some counties selected world-renown primary prevention programs and successfully implement them. Primorsko-Goranska and Zadar counties have closed “Life skills training”. City of Split and Dubrovnik-neretva county implemented the Northland project (entitled “Clear mind without the alcohol”). Istria county (with cities Poreč and Labin) and city of Zagreb applied Promoting alternative thinking strategies (PATHS) with kindergartens and primary school. Other had develop own authentic prevention initiatives. Medjimurje county intervention was based on peer group learning, Krapina-zagorje county on youth quality free time activities (youth empowerment and self-organizing) and Zagreb county school based substance misuse prevention program. Pressed by alarming data (ESPAD and HBSC) on binge drinking among Croatian youngsters Government made fast and wrong move. Although various interventions were carried out (as pilots) by county teams for years (some of them with high impact) in 2012 national level policy makers unpleasantly surprised us by selecting unknown and jet not validated program “Healthy for 5” as the national one. Pressure to implement the new national program (and abolish all existing ones) was enormous and extremely unrewarding for the members of the “Youngsters and Alcohol” CHCN work group.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Javno zdravstvo i zdravstvena zaštita

POVEZANOST RADA