Rates of sexual violence (SV) or dating violence (DV) remain high among college students (22% in the past year for female undergraduates). Binge drinking commonly occurs (25% of undergraduates report binge drinking in the past month) and is a strong predictor of sexual risk taking and violent victimization and perpetration. Given connections between SV/DV risk and alcohol use and abuse, many advocate prevention programming to jointly address SV/DV and alcohol abuse. Bystander interventions, recognized as promising violence prevention strategies, are unique in their engagement of all community members to 1) recognize situations that may become violent and 2) learn to safely and effectively intervene to reduce violence risk. Based on their promise, the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE) now requires all publicly-funded colleges to provide a bystander intervention aimed at reducing SV/DV. No randomized intervention trial to date has compared bystander interventions focused exclusively on SV/DV prevention with those that also address alcohol abuse prevention within the bystander context. We propose such an experimental trial at the University of Kentucky (UK), a nationally recognized leader in addressing SV through bystander intervention programming. This randomized intervention trial is designed to evaluate the relative efficacy of three bystander training conditions. Per UK policy, all incoming undergraduates participate in mandatory online SV training, and students recruited for this study will be randomized to a condition with one of the following additional elements: 1) Green Dot Intensive Bystander Training combined with Substance Abuse Prevention Training (SubINT); 2) Green Dot Intensive Bystander Training (INT) or 3) No add-on, online bystander training alone (Online).
Aim 1 : Evaluate methods to capture bystander behaviors and diffusion of training through social media communications (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram).
Aim 2 : Determine the relative efficacy of the three bystander training conditions to a) increase bystander efficacy and behaviors by domain (alcohol abuse and violence prevention), b) reduce acceptance of SV/DV, alcohol's role in sexual behavior, and alcohol use / abuse, and c) reduce risk taking behaviors by domains of sexual behavior and alcohol use / abuse.
Aim 3 : Determine the relative cost of implementing bystander approaches and their cost effectiveness. Design: Incoming UK undergraduates will be recruited and randomized to one of the three conditions and followed for one academic year (9 months) (n=6000, total over 3 academic year cohorts). A mixed-method approach will measure intervention fidelity and costs over time and by condition. Value-Added: UK Analytics and Technology will serve as a trusted broker to link and aggregate by randomized condition available external data from mandatory Campus Attitudes Toward Safety (CATS) and other assessments and academic records. Using the most rigorous design available, we seek to generate a new understanding of how novel bystander intervention approaches work to reduce not only SV/DV risk taking behaviors but also reduce alcohol abuse.

Public Health Relevance

While publicly-funded colleges are now required to implement bystander interventions focused on sexual violence (SV) prevention, few intervention programs have been rigorous evaluated to determine efficacy and cost effectiveness to reduce sexual violence. This large randomized intervention trial of 6,000 undergraduates will provide such an evaluation. These results will assist colleges in selecting interventions most likely to reduce the epidemic of SV (1 in 5 women undergraduates report unwanted sex in the year).

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01CE002690-03
Application #
9320011
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZCE1)
Project Start
2015-09-01
Project End
2018-08-31
Budget Start
2017-09-01
Budget End
2018-08-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2017
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Kentucky
Department
Obstetrics & Gynecology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
939017877
City
Lexington
State
KY
Country
United States
Zip Code
40526