Studying an Area Awash in Alcohol : Communities: A $100,000 survey seeks to learn why Pacoima and San Fernando have unusually high numbers of drunk driving accidents and other alcohol-related problems.

Pollsters began asking northeast San Fernando Valley residents a series of carefully crafted questions this week in hopes of painting a detailed picture of alcohol use in an area that authorities say has experienced an excessive number of alcohol-related problems.

The Pacoima-based Northeast Valley Health Corp. received a $100,000 federal grant to conduct the alcohol study, which also will analyze drunk driving arrests and map sites where alcohol is purchased or consumed publicly.

The agency last week began training volunteers to conduct a telephone poll of 1,600 households in Pacoima and the city of San Fernando in English and Spanish. From the initial group contacted, 400 respondents will be asked to take part in lengthier, in-person interviews at their homes.

“It’s designed to find out attitudes, behavior and knowledge related to alcohol use and alcohol-related problems,” said Marylou Bivian, the agency’s research project director.

Xavier Flores, who directs the agency’s community prevention and recovery program, said he is sensitive to concerns that alcohol problems, which exist citywide, are being more closely scrutinized in the two heavily Latino communities.

“I actually believe this area is being singled out for concentrated enforcement by the Police Department, and I don’t like that,” Flores said.

But Flores added that statistics indicate the communities in the northeast Valley do have more drunk driving accidents and other alcohol-related problems than many other parts of the city.

Even if the area is being targeted unfairly by police, Flores said, “there is enough to suggest that we have a big problem” with alcohol abuse.

Last month the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division, which includes the Pacoima area, led the Valley with 35 drunk driving accidents, said Sharyn Gunter, a Police Department analyst. During 1989, the Foothill Division’s 313 drunk driving accidents were topped only by the West Valley Division, which recorded 314.

Foothill Division had 2,530 adult drunk driving arrests, including incidents in which no collision occurred, in the first 11 months of 1989, second only to the Van Nuys Division.

Concerned about alcohol-related problems, city officials in recent months have tried to close or curtail sales at Pacoima-area bars and liquor stores, which they claim have contributed to drinking problems.

The new survey is expected to help determine whether cultural factors, unfamiliarity with drinking laws and job stress are linked to the community’s drinking problems.

“It’s not racist,” Juana Mora of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center said of the survey. “I don’t want to perpetuate stereotypes, but I think the Latinos, for whatever reasons, are drinking more heavily, especially the male population.”

Mora said she has researched Latino drinking patterns for the past 10 years. She reviewed Northeast Valley Health Corp.’s grant application for the alcohol study while employed by the Los Angeles County Office of Alcohol Programs.

“The reason why I recommended it for funding is that it has strong policy implications,” Mora said. “It can be used to help public officials reduce the availability of alcohol in that community.

“We do have some research that shows that if you reduce the availability, you can reduce the consumption, even more than education programs would. Information doesn’t necessarily change behavior. But if you impact the environment, that does tend to change behavior.”

Mora said that people, when surveyed, typically under-report the amount of drinking they do, and pollsters take that into account.

Project coordinator Bivian said survey questions were designed to ask respondents about general problems in their community before alcohol issues are addressed, usually in an indirect manner.

Researchers hope to find out whether alcohol abuse is more prevalent among adults living alone or with a family, among newcomers or longtime residents, among bilingual Latinos or those who speak only Spanish.

Researchers also will look for ties between alcohol use and health ailments or domestic problems such as spousal or child abuse, even though the respondents might not always admit to experiencing such difficulties.

After the study is completed in June, health agency members plan to distribute the findings to public officials and to use them to develop new prevention programs. The Northeast Valley Health Corp., funded by county, state and federal grants, serves about 20,000 primarily low-income residents each month.

Community leaders are also awaiting results of the study. “I think the information is going to be valuable to affirm certain concerns we have,” said Everto Ruiz, a lifelong San Fernando resident and a member of the Latino Coalition on Alcohol Issues of the San Fernando Valley.

Ruiz, who is acting Chicano studies department chairman at Cal State Northridge, said the results might help leaders curb widespread outdoor advertising for alcoholic beverages in the northeast Valley.

“I don’t think it’s enough to hope and pray that everybody’s going to live without destructive practices,” he said. “We have to try to have a community that doesn’t tolerate marketing practices that take advantage of people or are overwhelming in directing people toward negative ways of life.”