Reallocating Prevention Dollars

USING THE CAMPUS DIAGNOSTIC TO GARNER SUPPORT FOR EFFECTIVE PREVENTION

At Beta University*, the coordinator of health promotion has tried for years to convince her colleagues to stop investing valuable prevention dollars in invited speakers—a programming strategy that the research demonstrates to be ineffective in changing behaviors or reducing negative consequences of high-risk drinking.

This practitioner completed the Campus Diagnostic and received her results, which recommended that Beta University consider dropping invited speakers from their prevention programming due to lack of research-supported efficacy.

The practitioner passed this feedback along to several colleagues--who had historically resisted discontinuing speakers. Upon reading the Campus Diagnostic feedback, they agreed for the first time that Beta University should shift those prevention dollars towards strategies that are more likely to create behavior change among students.

*pseudonymed university