Ecological Modeling of College Drinking

描述（由申请人提供）：大学饮酒的生态系统建模。 该项目的总体目标是建立一个基于数学建模的酒精政策研究的新的实验范式。为了实现这一目标，具有酒精政策研究，理论生态系统建模，计算机建模和仿真以及软件工程专业知识的多学科研究人员团队已经聚集在一起，目标是开发基于预测过程的大学饮酒模型，用于测试多校区实验系统中的中心研究假设。 假设：校园水平的措施表明更大的身体和社会可用性-在较少的酒精控制政策，更大的酒精广告，更高密度的酒精出口，以及更少的酒精政策执行-与更高水平的个人饮酒行为和结果在整个研究校园，即使在控制个人水平的预测大学饮酒。 在模型开发和测试过程中将实现四个主要目标。 目标1：为了生成一个大学饮酒行为的认知模型，成功地捕捉到与美国许多大学存在的个人背景不匹配相关的多层次因果动态。 目标二：制定一套确定性的模型，大学饮酒，简单地捕捉多层次，多维动态的认知模型中证明。 目标三：通过对模型类型、模型复杂性和参数值的测试，对候选模型进行过渡，以得出过渡过程中最稳健的模型。 目标4：为了测试研究假设与由此产生的基于过程的模型使用的实验系统，需要成功预测大学饮酒的结果在多个大学复制。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Ecosystems Modeling of College Drinking. The overall goal of the project is to establish a new experimental paradigm for alcohol policy studies based in mathematical modeling. To accomplish this goal a multidisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in alcohol policy research, theoretical ecosystem modeling, computer modeling and simulation, and software engineering have been brought together with the goal of developing predictive process-based models of college drinking that will be used to test central study hypotheses in a multi-campus experimental system. Hypothesis: Campus level measures indicating greater physical and social availability - in terms of fewer alcohol control policies, greater alcohol advertising, higher densities of alcohol outlets, and less alcohol policy enforcement - are associated with higher levels of individual drinking behavior and outcomes across study campuses even after controlling for individual level predictors of college drinking. Four major objectives will be achieved in the process of model development and testing. Objective 1: To generate a cognitive model of college drinking behavior that successfully captures the multilevel causal dynamic associated with individual-context mismatch that exists at many US colleges. Objective 2: To formulate a set of deterministic models of college drinking that simply capture the multilevel, multidimensional dynamic evidenced in the cognitive models. Objective 3: To transition the candidate models through tests of model type, model complexity and parameter values to arrive at the most robust models resulting from the transition process. Objective 4: To test study hypotheses with the resulting process-based models using an experimental system that requires successful prediction of college drinking outcomes replicated across multiple colleges.