SPARC Intervention: Community organizing to produce environmental change on college campuses

The Study to Prevent Alcohol-Related Consequences (SPARC) was a five-year NIAAA-funded randomized trial that tested a comprehensive intervention using a community organizing approach to implement environmental strategies in and around college campuses. The ultimate goal of SPARC was to reduce high-risk drinking and alcohol-related consequences among college students.

This presentation will provide an overview of the SPARC Intervention. This overview will cover the primary inputs into the intervention (e.g., staffing, dedicated activity funds, and extensive training and technical assistance), its community organizing conceptual approach, and its matrix of environmental strategies to reduce high-risk drinking.

The SPARC intervention involved the development of a campus-community coalition at five intervention schools. These coalitions were charged with planning and implementing environmental strategies to improve social norms, policies, and practices related to high-risk drinking by college students. The environmental strategies were organized into four areas: (1) alcohol availability, (2) harm minimization, (3) social norms, and (4) alcohol price and marketing. Consistent with the population-wide focus of the environmental approach, the intervention targets the entire student population, the campus, and the surrounding community (individuals at-risk or alcohol-dependent college students are not specifically targeted).