Introduction: community action research and the prevention of alcohol problems at the local level.

Many community action projects from around the world exist to reduce alcohol problems at the local level. The role of research within this international movement is discussed within this introduction for the entire special issue on community action research in alcohol problem prevention. Previous community prevention programs have utilized a variety of prevention strategies: (a) an educational approach which focuses on changing behavior through changes in knowledge, attitudes, and information; and (b) an environmental approach which focuses on changing behavior through changes in the social and economic systems within a community. Many projects have used both approaches. This special issue provides a current overview of many types of community action projects from different countries and summarizes what has been learned to date from these experiences.

The Finnish case: community prevention in a time of rapid change in national and international trade.

This article looks at the present Finnish situation in planning and development of community-level prevention of alcohol and drug problems, and the experiences gained so far. Results from the first extensive evaluated project of this kind in Finland, the Lahti Project, and the program and evaluation plans for a new project in the Helsinki metropolitan area are also described. It is argued that in the present Finnish context there is need for detailed theoretical and well-measured evaluation on why the results of community-based prevention are or are not achieved.

Intoxication and hazardous use of alcohol: results from the 1992 Finnish Drinking Habits Study.

The harmful or risky use of alcohol among the Finnish population is studied on the basis of data gathered in a national survey. Harms are examined in relation to different styles of drinking, and they are measured using both the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the 1992 Drinking Habits Study of the Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies. Using an alcohol score of 11 as the cut-off point, 22% of men and 5% of women can be classified as risky drinkers. Young age and family relations are related positively to the prevalence of risky drinking. High scores in the youngest age group (15-19 years) are related to the intoxication-seeking drinking style. Those who drink often and large amounts on individual occasions experience the most harm related to drinking. However, those who drink seldom but more than seven units on a single occasion also experience harmful consequences fairly often and, thus can have high AUDIT scores. Significant others commonly criticize or give advice to the hazardous drinkers. Doctors or employers had paid less attention to the intoxication seeking or heavy drinking than the police or the significant others.

Excessive drinking and significant others.

This paper sets out to examine the experience of being a significant other by first discussing the existing notions and research traditions of the phenomenon. In the light of survey data it is shown that drinking problems are not only met within the circle of the nuclear family, or between the spouses. This approach presents an alternative perspective to that, which focuses on the relationship between the drinking male and the "co-dependent" female. There are also feelings of responsibility and concern between alcoholics and their close male relatives, colleagues and friends. Comparison between the male and female experience of being a significant other is taken as a goal for further research.

Alcohol use and its control in Finnish and Soviet marriages.

The paper reports the results of a comparative study conducted in Finland and in Estonia. A representative sample of young couples were interviewed in both countries. Husbands in both countries usually drink more often than their wives and are less dependent on their spouses' drinking company. Wives are more likely to attempt to control their spouses' drinking. Drinking and its control are associated with the emotional relationship between the spouses, and the attempts to control are logically associated with the controlled person's frequency of drinking. The wife's attempts to control the husband's drinking are more a blue collar than a white collar phenomenon. Finnish women and men drink more often than their Estonian counterparts. Maybe as a result of the greater frequency of drinking, drinking in Finland is more family-oriented than in Estonia. The Estonian culture seems more prone to informal control of the family members' drinking. These differences may be at least partly caused by differing alcohol policy climate in the two countries.