The partnership’s overall goal is to assist the Split community in engaging local government and community-based organizations in developing and implementing programs that improve the health of the population. Specific objectives are to:

• Identify the extent of alcohol abuse and factors associated with alcohol abuse among young people ages 12 - 17 in a sample of schools in the city of Split.
• Incorporate appropriate “best practices” in the project activities, including those identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for interventions targeting adolescent alcohol abuse.
• Develop and implement targeted educational, culturally appropriate interventions in specific high-risk schools and the community at large.
• Increase outreach to NGOs and other Healthy Cities projects in Croatia about the problem of adolescent alcohol abuse.
• Through the administration of Project Northland, increase student knowledge about problems associated with alcohol use by 10% by March 2003.
• Increase parental involvement with problems associated with adolescent alcohol use by 10% by Mach 2003 demonstrated by 80% completion of Project Northland parental score card.
• Increase community knowledge about problems associated with adolescent alcohol use as measured by the number of news stories/articles on Project Northland appearing by March 2003.

Needs Assessment

• Partners decided to focus their activities on alcoholism use and abuse among adolescents ages 12-17 in Split.

• Partners selected the Youth Behavior Risk Survey (YRBS), created by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the tool to establish baseline data on the problem of alcoholism among youth.  The YRBS was adapted to be culturally appropriate and translated into Croatian.

• Approval was received from the Ministry of Education and Sport to administer the survey to youth ages 12-17.  In June 2002, Split partners administered the survey to 1,000 students ages 12-17 in 17 schools in Split.

• With the help of the director of the Croatian Health Cities Network and a professor at the University of Zagreb “Andrija Stampar” School of Public Health the data collected from the YRBS was analyzed.

Selection of Intervention

• The partners jointly selected Project Northland as the intervention for use in Split. (Project Northland is a multi-tiered, community-based alcohol intervention that was launched in 1990 by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health. The intervention, which was pilot-tested in Minnesota and implemented in Russia, incorporates behavioral curricula for use in schools, parental involvement programs, extracurricular peer leadership and community-wide efforts for adolescents in sixth through eighth grades. The intervention was evaluated using a randomized community trial.)

• US partners applied for and received the rights to use the Project Northland curriculum in Split. The first year of the intervention will focus on sixth graders, the second year on 7th graders, and the third year on 8th graders.

• Project Northland materials were adapted to be culturally appropriate, translated and reproduced in Split.

Implementation

• Upon participating in a training-of-trainers session on the use of Project Northland, the US partners trained ten 6th grade teachers in Split.

• Partners received approvals from the Ministries of Health and Education to implement with the Project Northland initiative in Split schools.

• Twelve schools were selected to receive the intervention and twelve schools were selected to serve as controls. Two schools were selected as alternates.  Approximately 1,300 students participated in the intervention.

• A memorandum of understanding was signed on November 6, 2001 in Split, Croatia.
• As of February 2003, the partnership has had a total of 4 exchanges involving 4 person trips to Piscataway and 7 person trips to Split.