|
Boston, MA - July 9, 2003 - Eight universities that required their entire entering first-year classes to complete AlcoholEdu, an online alcohol prevention course, saw a reduction in alcohol consumption and improvement in drinking patterns by their students during the 2002-2003 school year.
Assessment data collected from more than 3,000 students at the eight schools immediately before and one month after they completed AlcoholEdu in the fall of 2002 revealed that:
- The proportion of students abstaining increased by 10 percent, from 39.4 to 43.4 percent of the total.
- Among students who continued to drink, the average number of drinks consumed per week declined more than 13 percent, from 9.9 before taking AlcoholEdu to 8.6 when measured a month after completing the program.
- The incidence of certain high-risk drinking behaviors, such as "pre-partying"-drinking at home before going out for the evening-showed significant decreases as well.
- And there were substantial improvements in healthier and safer behaviors, such as pacing drinks at one per hour and avoiding drinking when taking prescription medications.
Population-Level Prevention
"The results from the 2002-2003 first-year classes demonstrate that AlcoholEdu delivers the benefits of Population-Level Prevention to colleges attacking the problem of high-risk drinking," said Brandon Busteed, Chief Executive Officer of Outside The Classroom, developer of AlcoholEdu. "Numerous studies have shown that without AlcoholEdu, student drinking increases significantly-and becomes more dangerous-in the first year of college. But the schools mandating AlcoholEdu have reversed the tide. When an entire population of students takes AlcoholEdu, the culture of drinking on campus begins to change, with lower consumption rates and healthier behavior."
AlcoholEdu is an interactive, two-and-one-half-hour program that students take in the privacy of their own rooms. Presenting research- and science-based information in a non-opinionated format about the medical and social effects of drinking, it empowers students to make more informed decisions.
AlcoholEdu was designed to provide schools the ability to easily deploy a prevention program at a population level - meaning to all students in a given population, such as all first-year students at a college or university. AlcoholEdu serves as a highly scalable online prevention "dose" that can be given to entire populations of college students as a way of preventing and reducing high-risk drinking.
By deploying an effective prevention program to an entire population, the program creates a positive "viral" and "interactive" effect at both an individual and group level. Because it is a common bond or shared experience, students are more likely to talk about what they learned in AlcoholEdu with one another. This positive contagion is what generates enough force to counteract the often times overwhelmingly negative forces facing college freshmen with respect to high-risk drinking.
Each of the eight institutions mandated that the entire first-year class take AlcoholEdu as part of a comprehensive effort to curb high-risk drinking. They are among more than 300 campuses nationwide where AlcoholEdu is being used.
Implementing Population-Level Prevention at the University of Connecticut
"We are sincere about preventing a culture of drinking on our campus by educating an entire population of students at the start of their college careers on how to make smarter and safer choices," said John Saddlemire, Dean of Students at the University of Connecticut. "This year, we educated all of our 2,900 incoming first-year students; education of this magnitude enabled us to create a common bond and foundation among an entire class of students so they have the power to become their own safety net."
In addition to AlcoholEdu, the University of Connecticut recently completed a thorough self-study via University President Philip Austin's Task Force on Substance Abuse. The final report includes several initiatives to address the misuse and abuse of alcohol.
Documenting Improvements at Frostburg State University
In addition to requiring each first-year class to take AlcoholEdu, Frostburg State University in Maryland is using the program to monitor and document its progress in eliminating problems related to high-risk drinking. According to Tom Bowling, Associate Vice President for Student and Educational Services, the comprehensive data provided by AlcoholEdu enables the school to more accurately assess its progress in affecting change in student behavior. By integrating AlcoholEdu with other initiatives, such as substance-free housing, a peer educator program, a social norms program and a parental notification policy, Frostburg State is demonstrating the effectiveness of its comprehensive prevention strategy.
"AlcoholEdu is one of the most meaningful ways for institutions to demonstrate their commitment to educating their students about alcohol and its use," Bowling said. "At the same time, the data generated by the AlcoholEdu pre-, post- and follow-up assessments provide us with an accurate snapshot of the changes driven by our prevention programs. Even during difficult budgetary times, it is essential that the University invest the resources necessary to assist students to become more aware of the consequences of their choices."
Getting in Front of Alcohol Issues at Santa Clara University
At Santa Clara University in Northern California, a disciplinary program aimed at violators of campus alcohol policies in the 2001-2002 school year quickly evolved into a pre-emptive Population-Level Prevention program involving the entire first-year class. According to Matthew Duncan, Assistant Dean for Student Life, the response from many of the approximately 250 students who took AlcoholEdu under the school's sanction program was, "I wish I had gotten this earlier." So in the 2002-2003 school year, Santa Clara had all its first-year students take AlcoholEdu.
"We had always been in the position of responding to alcohol issues instead of being out in front," Duncan said. "Now we are arming our 1,125 first-year students with as much information from the get-go as possible. AlcoholEdu allows us to set the right expectations from the beginning while ensuring that we deliver a consistent message to our entire population of students."
About AlcoholEdu and Outside The Classroom
"The move by colleges to Population-Level Prevention through education of their entire first-year classes is inevitable, given the data documenting reduction in consumption and other high-risk behaviors," Busteed said. "We have known for a long time that AlcoholEdu motivates individual change, but now we are seeing that participation by an entire first-year class in our online prevention program can change behavior of the whole group in significant, positive ways."
Developed by a team of prevention experts, AlcoholEdu bases its instruction on interdisciplinary applications of alcohol to brain science, sociology, history and mathematics. It takes students through a personalized, interactive experience with decision-making exercises that emulate real-life situations they may experience at college. AlcoholEdu is also easy to implement and administer. Because it collects data from pre- and post-assessments, including tests and surveys, as well as from a follow-up survey one month after students take the course, it provides administrators with a wealth of information documenting population-level improvements in attitudes and behavior. As the online cornerstone of a university's comprehensive prevention program, AlcoholEdu supports and integrates with other initiatives ranging from motivational feedback to environmental management to social marketing programs, providing the world's most effective solution to the problem of high-risk drinking.
Outside The Classroom (www.outsidetheclassroom.com) was founded to address critical behavioral health issues. In addition to AlcoholEdu, universities nationwide are gaining insight about key campus health trends and environmental policy issues with TheHealthSurvey, a comprehensive, online assessment tool. Outside The Classroom is a partner to many prominent organizations, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA).
Return to Press Release Listing
|
