A community-based intervention to reduce alcohol-related accidents and violence in 9th grade students in southern Sweden: The example of the Trelleborg Project

The purpose of the present study was to analyse if a community-based intervention has led to a decrease in alcohol-related accidents and violence, and whether this was mediated by a reduction in excessive drinking and frequency of distilled spirits consumption. We applied logistic regression analyses on cross-sectional, non-repeated data, which was collected from a questionnaire distributed in classrooms to all 9th graders from 1999 to 2001, and in 2003 (n = 1376, 724 boys and 652 girls; response rate = 92.3%). All alcohol abstainers (n = 330) were excluded from the analyses, making the sample 1046 individuals. The odds ratio for alcohol-related accidents was significantly lower, comparing the baseline year (1999) with 2003 (OR 0.5, 95% CI 0.27–0.76). There was also an indication that self-reported alcohol-related violence had decreased between 1999 and 2003 (OR 0.7, 95% CI 0.43–1.01). When controlling these estimates for excessive drinking and frequency of distilled spirits consumption, the differences between survey years were substantially reduced or even deleted. In conclusion, the decrease in alcohol-related accidents and violence among 15–16-year-olds in Trelleborg, between 1999 and 2002, is likely to be attributed to the identified reduction in excessive drinking and frequency of distilled spirits consumption.