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Survey illustrates what Partners in Prevention is up against

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JANESVILLE — Of 147 people who completed a Partners in Prevention-Rock County online survey on adult perceptions of underage drinking, many thought the drinking age should be lowered to 18.

Some also thought it's the parent's right to allow underage drinking.

Regardless of previous and ongoing efforts to reduce youth substance abuse in county communities, the survey revealed the local coalition has work to do, said Kathy Comeau, PIP project coordinator.

"We (still) need to do some educating of the public about alcohol," she said.

Comeau drew that conclusion after Partners in Prevention analyzed its latest community survey about underage drinking in Edgerton and Beloit.

Many commenters supported lowering the drinking age to 18. They argued that if a person can work at 14 and vote and join the military at 18, he or she should be allowed to drink, she said.

Asked if they agreed or disagreed with a statement that it's OK for 18- to 20- year-olds to drink alcohol, 47 percent of people surveyed from Edgerton disagreed while 70.6 percent of people from Beloit disagreed, Comeau said.

Comments that drinking responsibly would not affect a youth's ability to learn indicates that many people do not realize the brain is still developing well into the mid-20s, she said.

"Although almost all people surveyed acknowledged that alcohol can affect youth's ability to make decisions, only 76.6 percent of those surveyed from Edgerton agreed that alcohol could have a life-long impact on a youth's developing brain, while 84.3 percent of those surveyed from Beloit agreed," she said.

"We need to continue to get the word out about how alcohol affects development of the brain and that it can have some pretty severe consequences," Comeau said.

Survey respondents also thought that whether to report underage drinking to law enforcement depended on whether the drinkers were under 16 and whether parents were involved.

"So if parents were present, they were less likely to report," she said.

The survey also showed that people were more likely to report parties that were loud than parties that were supervised. It also revealed that many people considered hard liquor to be different than other types of alcohol, Comeau said.

"So having a beer is OK vs. hard liquor, even though the alcohol content may be the same," she said.

Partners mailed 2,000 postcards to both communities in January. Only 153 adults—mostly aged 40 to 59—started the survey. Of those, 69 were from Edgerton and 84 from Beloit. Seventy-nine were parents. Ninety-eight were female, and 55 were male, Comeau said.

"We were pleased by the types of groups responding, just not the number of responses received," she said.

With only a 7 percent response rate, Comeau said the group couldn't generalize how people think in Edgerton or Beloit.

"But we can say that out of the 147 completed surveys, this is what people thought," Comeau said.

Partners will repeat the survey in spring 2011 to see if perceptions change and to try to increase the number of responses, Comeau said.

Meanwhile, Partners in Prevention is working with CrimeStoppers in Janesville, Beloit and Edgerton to promote its text, type and talk software campaign known as safe reporting. It also will promote its "Parents Who Host; Lose the Most" campaign around prom and this summer. It will focus on locking up liquor.

"We're going to raise awareness," she said, "that you know where your liquor is, how much you have and not to make it accessible to young people."