This proposal was originally submitted to the NIAAA under the special RFA (RFA-AA-02-001) entitled """"""""Alcohol-Related Problems Among College Students: Epidemiology and Prevention."""""""" The project proposed here will test environmental interventions to reduce alcohol-related problems among college students. Specifically, the research program proposed here focuses on developing, validating, and testing environmental measures and prevention programs with the goal of reducing high-risk drinking environments and thereby reducing alcohol-related consequences among college students. This research program proposed has two primary aims:
Aim 1 : We will develop and validate a model of environmental risk and protective factors related to alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems experienced by college students. To this end, the following intermediate objectives will be achieved: a) Develop an empirically based typology of student drinking environments; b) Identify environmental risk and protective factors related to heavy drinking, intoxication and alcohol-related problems; c) Develop and establish the validity and reliability of environmental measures (both self-report and observational); and d) Develop and statistically test an explanatory environmental model of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems.
Aim 2 : Using current scientific literature, the measures and conceptual model developed in Aim 1, we will test the efficacy of increasing formal and informal controls of alcohol use to reduce the risk of alcohol problems in college students' drinking environments. We have selected the two most common environmental drinking settings--bars and parties--to test the following interventions: a) A Safe Party Intervention for Private Parties (responsible host training, targeted law enforcement); and b) A Responsible Beverage Service (RBS) Training Intervention for College Bars (service practices, price policies, targeted law enforcement, safe-rides intervention). The plan is phased into three main segments: 1) model and measures testing and development (Years 1 & 2), 2) intervention development (Year 3), 3) intervention testing (Year 4). The fifth year of the proposed program will entail analysis and reporting. The proposed research program is designed to systematically address gaps in the literature concerning environmental prevention among college students.
