Safer California Colleges and Universities

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite periodic calls for effective prevention, college student drinking is still responsible for over 1700 deaths annually, over 600,000 assaults, almost as many unintentional injuries and nearly 100,000 sexual assaults. In producing its "Call to Action," the NIAAA Task Force on College Student Drinking asked the research community to develop rigorous studies that would identify efficacious prevention strategies. The Safer California Universities Project, involving 14 universities and using a randomized, control-group experimental design, developed and implemented a comprehensive community intervention aimed at reducing alcohol consumption and related problems at off-campus homes and apartments, which seems to have succeeded in doing so. This competitive continuation application seeks funds to replicate the intervention with the former control campuses, while further developing the implementation to achieve even greater impact. It would also examine student and campus-level factors that may facilitate or mitigate the intervention's impact. Future dissemination of the intervention will be made possible by the development of a "toolkit" designed to give both general and specific instructions for duplicating the program at other colleges and universities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: College student drinking is responsible for over 1700 deaths annually, over 600,000 assaults, almost as many unintentional injuries and nearly 100,000 sexual assaults. There is an obvious need to develop prevention programs and strategies to reduce this harm and facilitate the educational mission of our universities. The Safer California Universities Project has developed a promising universal alcohol control strategy that seems to reduce intoxication at student social gatherings. If these findings are replicable, we may have a significant prevention strategy to add to the short list of effective programs.