Alcoholism is a chronic and progressive disease that results from excessive and uncontrolled ingestion of alcohol, which is found in all alcoholic beverages to a greater or lesser degree. Adolescents are the most at risk, making underage drinking a major public health problem in the Los Angeles County. Alcohol has many physical and psychological effects that make a person change his or her behavior. Little by little, alcohol becomes a drug to the individuals who ingest it and could cause many complications and even death. “Alcohol is the third-leading cause of preventable death in the United States and it accounts for 2,500 mortal deaths in the Los Angeles County each year” (Substance Abuse Prevention and Control, 2011). Alcoholism is complex …show more content…
Therefore, alcoholism is not a simple an easy subject to treat. To effectively address the issue of youth alcohol use, the Los Angeles County need to have enough infrastructure and enough capacity to operate effective prevention programs (Williams et al., 2012). Capacity is quantified with gap scores that measure the discrepancy of an agency's performance and the attribute's relative importance (Brannigan et al., 2004). The results obtained are to determine capacity-building efforts, sustainability, and funding. Before taking initiative in assessing the issue, there are key stakeholders. The key stakeholders in the LA County are the community as a whole, providers, patients, educators, payers, employees, etc. But the main and most important stakeholders of all are the parents of these youths who want their sons and daughters to overcome their alcoholism problem and be better citizens for the good-will of the community. Before beginning, there are some extra steps to take to make sure that everything will have a good outcome. First, deciding which of the stakeholders will be able to find a solution to the problem. Then, there has to be some research in the cities of LA County to determine the pros and cons of the problem. And finally, after gathering all the necessary information, the social assessment or so-called Phase 1 could