The Cambridge Prevention Coalition is an innovative community-based coalition linking substance abuse prevention to a range of health promotion initiatives.

The Coalition has been awarded grants from the Department of Public Health's Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, Substance Abuse Prevention Grants and its MassCALL2 grants to reduce opioid overdose. In addition, it has also received the STOP Act grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Using these resources, the Coalition uses a collaborative community-based implementation approach toward community change. It focuses on reducing underage drinking by engaging youth and adults, as well as working closely with drug and alcohol treatment providers to reduce opioid overdoses. Activities involve youth, community residents, local businesses, law enforcement, the licensing commission, schools, media and universities. The Coalition uses a variety of environmental strategies to support community change including reducing access to drugs and alcohol, affecting social norms and education and training.

Over the past few years, the Coalition has also developed responsible beverage service training for servers and sellers of alcohol.  Owners and managers are included in the training, which provides information on the public health justifications for alcohol laws and ordinances and the important role servers play in protecting public health.  In addition to including information on the local and state laws and regulations regarding alcohol sales, the training also includes a strong skill-building component to enable servers to practice the techniques presented in the training.   The training also shows owners, managers and servers methods on how to maintain and increase sales without promoting alcohol abuse.

Throughout its 20-year existence, the members of the Coalition have collaborated to produce community forums on the results of the biannual middle school and high school health surveys for key decision-makers in the community. Each of these forums has focused on a different aspect of substance abuse and its impact in the community.

In the last five years, Coalition staff has presented papers on its prevention efforts at least once each year at national conferences such as the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting, and the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care Convention. The Coalition has also presented numerous papers on its prevention efforts at state and local conferences.