1. Trialled in schools in Northern Ireland and Scotland, an alcohol harm reduction curriculum for secondary schools plus a parental component led to fewer pupils drinking heavily at a single sitting, but without significantly reducing harm related to the child’s drinking.

Key points from summary and commentary

• Aiming to reduce alcohol-related harm, the Steps Towards Alcohol Misuse Prevention Programme (STAMPP) combined alcohol education in secondary schools with an attempt to involve parents in more actively seeking to regulate their children’s drinking.
• Trialled in schools in Northern Ireland and Scotland, set against usual education it led to fewer pupils drinking heavily at a single sitting, but without significantly reducing harm related to the child’s drinking.
• Bolstered by this study, school-based programmes aiming to reduce harm rather than prevent drinking per se have a limited but relatively good research record in the UK. 

[Referenced article: Steps Towards Alcohol Misuse Prevention Programme (STAMPP): a school-based and community-based cluster randomised controlled trial. BMJ Open, 8, (3), e019722.]

2. Strong argument for harm reduction to be the basis of standard drug education within schools from this large-scale Australian trial. Alcohol-related findings 15 months after the two-year programme ended showed its residual effectiveness in reducing pupils’ alcohol consumption and related harm.

Key points from summary and commentary

• The Drug Education in Victorian Schools programme delivered harm reduction and skills-focused substance use education to secondary school pupils over a two-year period.
• The featured study evaluated the programme’s residual effectiveness a year after pupils stopped receiving lessons through this programme.
• Between baseline and the follow-up there were several statistically significant findings, including a greater increase in knowledge about drugs among intervention pupils, less of an increase in alcohol consumption, a decrease in alcohol-related harm, and fewer risky drinkers.