Meeting with Department of HHS

Washington DC.   Members of the Leadership To Keep Children Alcohol Free Foundation met with Dr. Howard Koh, Assistant Secretary of HHS, and his team to discuss childhood drinking and how to maintain its visibility. He recognized the cyclical nature of the alcohol issue and suggested we needed to be creative in our efforts.   We learned that HHS has a new office of Adolescent Health that they hope will focus on many issues that affect health in the second decade of life.

The Department of Health and Human Services has decided to promote prevention in a major way because it has the potential to reduce health care costs while improving the lives of citizens.

The Leadership suggested more reports that link childhood drinking with other issues affecting the health and well being of children and adolescents, efforts to increase the age of first use, and policy changes that affect early use. We agreed to work closely with each other to increase the effectiveness and outreach of our mutual efforts to impact childhood drinking.

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