Scaling-up primary health care-based prevention and management of heavy drinking at the municipal level in middle-income countries in Latin America: Background and protocol for a three-country quasi-experimental study

While primary health care (PHC)-based prevention and Background management of heavy drinking is clinically effective and cost-effective, it remains poorly implemented in routine practice. Systematic reviews and multi-country studies have demonstrated the ability of training and support programmes to increase PHC-based screening and brief advice activity to reduce heavy drinking. However, gains have been only modest and short term at best. WHO studies have concluded that a more effective uptake could be achieved by embedding PHC activity within broader community and municipal support. : A quasi-experimental study will compare PHC-based prevention and Protocol management of heavy drinking in three intervention cities from Colombia, Mexico and Peru with three comparator cities from the same countries. In the 1,2 1 1 3-5