Johannesburg, South Africa

Screening and Brief Intervention is an evidence-based practice used to identify, reduce, and prevent the harmful use of, and dependence on, alcohol and illicit drugs.

Partner: HIVSA (Implementation), Witswatersand University (Evaluation)

Project status
Plans call for 42,000 adults to receive SBI screening at health clinics in 2020 and 2021, with 1,000 people screened per month for the first six months, scaling up by an additional 500 per month to a level of 2,500 per month in the last six months of 2021. Roughly 80% of those screening positive will receive an intervention. An initial survey indicates that adults account for 96.9% of heavy drinking in Alexandra, so the reduction in the harmful use of alcohol from this intervention would be 2.6 percent. As the project is being integrated into existing care services, it’s likely to persist after this initial startup.

RBS is a training program that is designed to help staff at establishments like bars, restaurants, and liquor stores that is designed to reduce excessive alcohol consumption and other alcohol-related harms at the community level.

Partner: TBD

Project status
The RBS program will kick start with geo-mapping liquor outlets in Alexandra and Tembisa, Johannesburg to calculate tavern and shebeen density as well as the distances between shebeens and other alcohol outlets, taverns, and sensitive locations such as schools, clinics, and churches. The information collected will also provide information on which liquor outlets are not complying to the municipality by-laws.

After the mapping, the City Pilot is planning universal, comprehensive, ongoing RBS training for liquor traders including restaurant servers that will include a behavior change component. Observers known to the liquor traders will visit selected liquor outlets regularly to check on compliance. Observers will then report their findings to the traders and routine non-compliance will result in additional training and eventually law enforcement. It’s estimated that this program will reduce the harmful use of alcohol by at least 1%, and possibly more.

Root causes for violence against women include the individual- and family-level factors of alcohol abuse, mental health problems, violence exposure, and related adverse experiences. SASA! is a groundbreaking community mobilization approach developed by Raising Voices for preventing both violence against women and HIV.  It is uniquely designed to address a core driver of violence against women and HIV: the imbalance of power between women and men, girls and boys. Documented in a comprehensive and easy-to-use Activist Kit, SASA! inspires and enables communities to rethink and reshape social norms. SASA! is the only program that has shown community-wide effects in Africa—one study found that SASA! reduced physical intimate partner violence by 47%, yet a 25% reduction in effectiveness is assumed in this replication. With physical IPV responsible for 13% of the harmful use of alcohol in Alexandra, the projected reduction in the harmful use of alcohol is 4.6 percent.

Partner: Agisanang Domestic Abuse Prevention and Training (ADAPT)

Project status
SASA! Will include the use of an evidence-based approach for reducing violence against women by targeting a range of individual- and family-level factors, including alcohol abuse. With physical IPV responsible for 13% of the the harmful use of alcohol in Alexandra, the projected reduction in the harmful use of alcohol is 4.6 percent.

As road crashes account for an estimated 2.7% of alcohol-attributable YHL loss in Alexandra, the AEC is intended to support well-publicized, high-visibility enforcement that include breath testing and effective prosecution of those arrested for drink-driving. The likely impact should parallel the 7% effectiveness of other saturation patrols, resulting in a 0.3% reduction in YHLs attributable to alcohol.

Partner: EYAM

Project status
In 2019, Steering Committee funded the design, alterations, additions, and refurbishments of the existing Alcohol Evidence Centre at Metro Police Department (JMPD), Marlboro Testing Centre. Through the AEC, the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department will implement Evidentiary Breathalyzer Alcohol Testing (EBAT) in order to confront the scourge of road fatalities and injuries.

In December 2013, the Road Traffic Act and accompanying regulations were amended to accommodate breath testing as an enforcement tool. The AEC as equipped with Drager Intoximeters which meet National Prosecution Authority requirements for successful prosecutions of drunk driving cases. Operator manuals, curriculum designed and signed off by the RTMC, and MPO’s training was provided to the JMPD academy. The evidence collection process is designed with NPA assistance to ensure validity of evidentiary value. The AEC was launched on November 22^nd, 2019 by the Johannesburg City Mayor, Herman Mashaba.

In 2020, the City Pilot will continue to support the efforts of the AEC through a social marketing campaign tackling drunk driving, including the promotion of the AEC. The City Pilot will also provide technical support to the AEC to assist with the prosecution of drunk drivers.