FY2006 Award Abstracts for the Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Models on College Campuses

The Wellness Resource Center (WRC) at The University of Missouri-Columbia has implemented an extensive social norming campaign for six years using clear and consistent messages informing students about the actual alcohol use of their peers as well as informing students about the protective factors that their peers are using in regard to their drinking. The WRC proposes to implement two comprehensive interventions called Most of Us Make Healthy, Safe and Smart Choices and MUmythbusters in order to increase the number of students who make responsible decisions in regard to alcohol.

The Most of Us Make Healthy, Safe and Smart Choices will be enhanced through adding more protective factors, by adding data about injunctive norms, and by creating a targeted campaign to better address the higher risk drinkers in the Greek system. Over the past three years, the "Most of Us" messages resulted in an increase of 44 percent in the number of students who alternated non-alcoholic drinks with alcoholic drinks. The MUmythbusters campaign will address myths about the environment in which students drink and about students’ drinking expectancies by countering the myths with facts in an ongoing marketing campaign.

The Committee on University and Community Relations, a campus-community coalition initiative at The University at Albany, SUNY, has been in existence for fifteen years and has served as the central initiative within the university’s comprehensive alcohol and other drug abuse prevention program. The program reports significant shifts in perceptions by long-term neighbors toward accurate norms regarding student drinking and UAlbany proactive measures to address underage drinking in the community. The program proposes to develop, implement, and evaluate a coordinated and multifaceted campus and community-based social norms media campaign that incorporates the unique delivery of information on the health-related and protective behaviors of UAlbany students to both students on and off campus and to members of the local Albany residential and business community.

The Montclair Social Norming Project (MSNP) has educated students at Montclair State University (MSU) to make healthy choices by promoting knowledge of actual drinking norms at MSU, reducing misperceptions of alcohol use, and promoting responsible, alcohol-related decision-making. The program reports a decrease of binge drinking in the highest risk category (Greek house functions) from 33.6% to 28%. Project enhancements include implementing a quasi-experimental comparative design that focuses on freshmen resident students and their families, providing a venue that encourages specific faculty-student collaboration to produce evidence-based, student-initiated research related to the social norming project and organizing a campus task force related to alcohol policy and practice.

Healthy Expectations at George Mason University emphasizes healthy transitions to college for first-year students. Its approach, grounded in the theories of social norms marketing and life health planning and designed to complement traditional campus-based alcohol abuse prevention efforts, exposes students to legacy development, life health principles, and resource connectedness. The process engages students in a reflective planning process, addressing seven life health themes through 31 topics relevant to students’ college success. The program proposes to enhance and disseminate COMPASS: A Roadmap to Healthy Living CD-ROM and web-based resource for Healthy Expectations that engages students and student leaders in proactive activities that promote healthy personal and group legacies.