One of the earliest evaluated community action projects on alcohol took place in New Zealand in the 1980s. This was a demonstration project using a quasi experimental design. In the two decades since, there have been a number of different approaches taken, responding to the political and economic context of the project, but all utilizing community development processes and focused on implementing policy. Six community action projects on alcohol are described and analysed to illustrate how contextual influences can shape a project. Changes in the funding climate after the 1980s meant that subsequent projects had to rely more on existing resources and non-research funds for their implementation and evaluation. Lessons from these projects are discussed and related to a generalisable knowledge base about the structure and content of effective community action projects.
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