Dr Vanessa Hammond, who has surveyed 334 (98%) of the town's more senior high school pupils, told the Otago Daily Times the survey was nearing completion.
She was also about to begin analysing responses from in-depth focus group sessions with some of the pupils.
Dr Hammond said the work was funded by the Health Promotion Agency and would provide a "baseline'' of information about the use of alcohol by young people in Wanaka.
It was initiated by the alcohol group, with the support of Mt Aspiring College and health organisations.
The chairwoman of the group, Rachel Brown, said the formation of the group and the survey were responses to two violent episodes in Wanaka's history involving young people and alcohol.
"A number of years ago, there was really quite a nasty alcohol-fuelled incident and there was a community meeting and lots of different people saying ‘we need to do something about this'.''
Ms Brown said the group had taken heed of work done in Iceland to reduce the harm from alcohol among young people, and that had begun with a baseline study, as was being done in Wanaka.
"It's really a health and wellbeing survey - a health check on our community.''
Ms Brown said the researchers were working in partnership with the college, but "basically, it's a community ownership thing''.
"If our youth are having big problems then ... the whole community needs to own it, not just the school.''
Ms Brown said it was hoped, from the research, it would be possible to "isolate and identify'' the issues and enable the community to focus its attention and resources.
"You work on the particular issue, and then you do the next survey, and you actually show you have made a difference. That would be the best possible scenario.''
Dr Hammond said questions used in the survey were a subset of those used in the Youth 2012 survey carried out nationally.
The survey also contained questions about how connected the young people felt with their families, school and community.
"The whole initiative in Iceland was to try to reduce alcohol consumption in their youth by increasing connectedness to school, community and family. It was a whole of community intervention.''
