ACI stop act project - anaconda community intervention (ACI) serves deer lodge county, encompassing 741 square miles (about half the area of rhode island) with a population of 9,510 (2022

Deer lodge county's health index ranks #42 out of 47 counties, placing them in the bottom 11%. The US census indicates that 91.9% of our population identifies as white, 3.8% as hispanic/latino, .9% as african american, 1. % as alaskan/ american indian, .7% as asian, and 4.10% identify as two or more races; and 53% identify as male and 47% female. • due to our community's economic status, 100% of students in K-12 receive free/reduced breakfast/lunch. • 50% of our youth had their first alcoholic drink before age 18 (2023 yrbs). • 50% of 12TH-grade students reported past 30-day use (2022 mpna). • 62.15% of individuals aged 12 or older in our substate region used alcohol in the past month. Averages are based on 2016, 2017, and 2018 nsduhs. Current substate estimates are no longer available due to methodological concerns about combining 2020 data with data from 2018 and 2019. • 30.28% of this same group reported binge alcohol use in the past month. Higher than any other region in montana and the montana average. Our goal is to prevent and reduce alcohol use among anaconda-deer lodge county youth (ages 12-20) by implementing activities that support capacity building through collaboration, increase accessibility and outreach for our at-risk/high-risk youth, cultivate substance-free environments, and develop strategies to sustain our efforts. We will accomplish this by strengthening collaboration between our coalition, other montana-based prevention organizations, and montana government agencies (that include a focus on the prevention of youth alcohol use), improving methods of disseminating and sharing surveillance data related to underage drinking and population-based risk factors to the public; limiting youth access to alcohol; and decreasing community norms favorable to underage drinking. To measure the impact of our effort, we have established the following outcome objectives, which correlate with the four performance measures required. By september 29, 2028 (using the 2022 mpna survey as a baseline): to reduce 8TH, 10TH, and 12TH grade past 30-day use of alcohol from 24.3% to 19.44% (20%); to increase perception of risk or harm from 72% to 86.4% (20%), to strengthen parental disapproval (8TH, 10TH and 12TH grade) from 93% to 98% (5.38%), and perception of peer disapproval from 71.9% to 85.92% (20%), to increase attitudes towards peer use of alcohol from 71.2% to 85.44% (20%), and to decrease the incidence of binge drinking (5 or more per occasion) from 14.6% to 11.68% (20%).