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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Linda Langford, ScD, Higher Education Center for AOD Prevention, 55 Chapel Street, Newton, MA 02458, (617) 618-2719, llangford@edc.org
Alcohol has long been the drug of choice among college students, who drink at higher rates than their noncollege counterparts. Studies of campus officials, students, and faculty find that alcohol problems rank high among the issues of greatest concern on campus. Traditional prevention efforts on college campuses have, for the most part, focused on providing individuals with information and skills to help them avoid problems. While these types of activities have been shown to increase knowledge, studies show they have little impact on high-risk behavior. Recent efforts to stem college student drinking have emphasized the need to change the campus and community environments in which this behavior occurs. The presentation has three goals: (1) to outline a typology of programs and policies for preventing and treating campus-based alcohol problems, with a particular focus on strategies to change environmental contributors such as lax enforcement, high levels of alcohol availability, and aggressive marketing of alcohol; (2) to summarize the research evidence in support of these approaches, including recent case studies showing the promise of campus-based environmental management strategies; and (3) to describe a strategic planning and evaluation framework designed to assist campus and community officials in identifying specific problems, matching those problems with promising interventions, and conducting program evaluation to build the evidence base.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, participants will be able to
Keywords: Alcohol Problems, College Students
Related Web page: www.edc.org/hec
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.