Fraternity and sorority normative feedback interventions

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This grant builds on the Center for Alcohol and Substance Education's (CASE) previous experience and existing close relationships with University of Virginia (UVA) fraternities and sororities. The goal is to reduce the frequency of negative consequences related to alcohol use experienced by the 3,426 members of UVA's fraternities and sororities, who make up 26% of the undergraduate student population. The specific intervention strategies are small group social norm presentations (NIAAA Tier 3 strategy) and personalized, normative feedback from a web-based survey (NIAAA Tier 1 strategy). The design includes two phases and addresses the question of the value of gender-specific normative feedback as well as the value added by the NIAAA Tier 3 strategy. Phase 1 interventions will occur in the 2005/06 academic year. Fraternity and sorority chapters, stratified by sex and governing council, will be randomly assigned to one of three intervention conditions: small group social norms only (SGSN), online personalized normative feedback only (OPNF), and online personalized normative feedback plus small group social norms intervention (COMBINED). All experimental conditions will include normative information on alcohol consumption patterns, negative consequences, protective behaviors, and attitudes and behaviors relevant to violence and hazing issues. Phase 2 interventions will occur in the 2006/07 academic year. Within each original intervention condition, fraternity and sorority chapters will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions: gender-specific feedback or gender-neutral feedback. Outcome measures are derived from the two annual University-wide health surveys and existing validated instruments. The composite instrument will be administered in the spring of each academic year. This study offers a number of innovations by: identifying and targeting high-risk groups, instead of identifying high-risk individuals as nearly all programs utilizing brief, personalized feedback have done; including social norms information relevant to violence and hazing; testing an augmentation strategy to estimate the value added by a NIAAA Tier 3 intervention; providing evidence on the value of gender-specific norms; and assessing the effects of a moderator variable (readiness to change) on outcome.