The role of the primary care provider in preventing and treating alcohol problems in adolescents

Adolescents use alcohol more frequently and heavily than all other illicit drugs combined.(1) Given the myriad health, developmental, and social problems associated with alcohol use, it is not surprising that the American Medical Association's Guidelines for Adolescent Preventive Services recommends that adolescents be asked annually about their use of alcohol, and those who report any use during the past year should be assessed further. However, routine alcohol screening of adolescents in primary care and emergency medical settings is not universally applied. In March 2000, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Health care Research and Quality jointly sponsored a meeting entitled The Expanding Role of Primary Care in the Prevention and Treatment of Alcohol-Use Disorders. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together researchers, policymakers, clinicians, insurance providers, and medical education specialists to determine the best approaches to increase the involvement of primary care physicians and other health care professionals in screening and intervening for alcohol problems in their patients. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and Agency for Health care Research and Quality believe that the evidence of efficacy for primary care involvement is compelling and are working together to promote the translation of these findings into clinical practice. The following article summarizes what is currently known about adolescent alcohol use and how it can be addressed in primary care settings. It provided the background for the meeting's focus on adolescent issues