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BOSTON - January 15, 2008 - A new study published this month in the NASPA Journal suggests that first-year students who complete AlcoholEdu for College, Outside The Classroom's online alcohol prevention program, engage in heavy drinking less frequently, suffer fewer alcohol-related consequences, and have less positive expectations of drinking than do students who have not taken the program. The study, conducted by Dr. Andrew F. Wall of the University of Rochester, demonstrated that these results persisted throughout much of the school year.
With the Wall study and other promising research in hand, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has funded a national control group study of AlcoholEdu for College that begins this spring. The $2 million study, to be conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), will be looking at differences in alcohol-related outcomes between college campuses that require AlcoholEdu for College of all freshmen and those that do not. PIRE's study will use a multi-campus experimental design: 15 schools will serve as intervention sites, and 15 schools will serve as control sites. The study will run through the spring of 2010.
"I've long supported the idea of universal alcohol education for first-year college students, and Dr. Wall's evaluation of AlcoholEdu for College is extremely encouraging," said Dr. William DeJong, Director of Program Research and Development at Outside The Classroom and a professor of social and behavior sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). "AlcoholEdu can become like taking the SAT and writing a personal essay for the admissions application - just something students have to do before going to college."
AlcoholEdu for College is a science-based program designed to educate students on the risks associated with alcohol consumption. Student perceptions about drinking are challenged by research-based insights in order to promote changes in student expectations about alcohol and enable students to make safer, healthier decisions. AlcoholEdu for College is personalized to each student based on past drinking patterns, gender, and current perceptions about alcohol.
The best implementation strategy is for a college's entire first-year class to take the course, what the company calls Population-Level Prevention . Outside The Classroom continuously evaluates the program, which has already built a strong track record of effectiveness in changing students' alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors. AlcoholEdu for College is used on more than 500 college campuses and has been taken by more than 1.3 million college students. The course will be taken by approximately 25% of all freshmen in the 2007-08 academic year.
"NIAAA's funding of the PIRE study is a clear vote of confidence in AlcoholEdu for College," said Brandon Busteed, Founder and CEO of Outside The Classroom. "We welcome this new external evaluation and look forward to its results, especially given that AlcoholEdu is the most widely used prevention program in higher education."
About Outside The Classroom
The leader in online prevention, Outside The Classroom has spent seven years focused on tackling high-risk drinking and related epidemic-level health issues by delivering programs and services designed for population-level application. The company offers a variety of programs, including AlcoholEdu, SexualAssaultEdu™, and MentalHealthEdu™, developed for students, parents, and higher education faculty and staff. All of Outside The Classroom's programs take a non-opinionated, science- and evidence-based approach, helping to support safe and healthy campus communities. Led by William DeJong, Ph.D., the company's development team includes prevention professionals, assessment and evaluation experts, experienced educators, and leading scientists. Outside The Classroom collaborates with many prominent organizations, including the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).
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