Our Mission is to unite prevention advocates in Washington State to create safe and healthy communities by preventing substance misuse and violence.
What is Environmental Prevention?
“Environmental Prevention” - focuses on reducing substance misuse across an entire population and is most effective when carried out through a coordinated, community-based approach.
Grounded in public health, environmental strategies focus on the broader physical, social, cultural, and institutional factors that shape substance use. These well-established prevention approaches help coalitions change the environments in which substance misuse and abuse occur.
Environmental strategies focus on preventing problems by changing community conditions—such as rules, policies, systems, and social norms. Coalitions use these strategies to create community-wide impact, while also running evidence-based prevention programs that target specific groups or age ranges.
Increasing fines for selling to minors, keeping tobacco products behind the counter, keeping cannabis retail stores away from schools, and placing lighting in public spaces that have been used for drug sales or drug using behaviors are examples of environmental prevention strategies.
Interest in studying how environmental strategies can influence alcohol use began in the mid-1970s. In the United States, communities started adopting this approach in the mid-1980s as a way to deal with rising problems such as alcohol-related crime and violence around alcohol outlets, drinking and driving, underage drinking, and other local alcohol issues.
Reducing Underage Drinking
For laws and regulations to work, they need to be properly enforced. Police officers play an important role in this and should be included on community advisory boards, health task forces, and school or community coalitions. But enforcement isn’t only the job of the police. Young people, parents, and other community members also contribute to keeping rules in place. Prevention specialists can help by informing law enforcement about which enforcement strategies work best and what program elements make them more effective.
Workforce
Employers can take many steps to prevent substance use among workers. Programs like employee assistance programs (EAPs), wellness programs, and even unions can help by educating employees about substance use and showing them where to get help if needed.
Improving workplace conditions can also make a difference. For example, reducing the risk of injuries may lower the number of employees who receive opioid pain medication. Reducing workplace stress and limiting alcohol at company events can also help decrease substance use among employees.
Download the 2020 American Public Health Association policy statement, "A Public Health Approach to Protecting Workers from Opioid Use Disorder and Overdose Related to Occupational Exposure, Injury, and Stress."
Opioids
The opioids crisis - particularly fentanyl - has overtaken almost all aspects of our society. Washington communities and policymakers have been trying to deal with the adverse effects for the past several years. Trying to come to grips with opioids has necessitated an all-hands-on-deck approach to addressing the crisis.
In 2024, Washington saw the first decrease in overdose deaths in many years.
Prevention and public health providers have played an important role in the response to the opioid crisis by increasing education in communities about fentanyl and other opioids, working in partnership with treatment providers and law enforcement, and helping to promote harm reduction strategies like administering naloxone to reverse overdoses. These efforts have complimented the work done by healthcare providers, treatment providers, emergency responders, law enforcement and the criminal justice system.
