Assessing the efficacy of college alcohol task forces

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) recommends the formation of campus and community coalitions as one strategy to help alter aspects of college campus culture that support excessive and underage alcohol use. This approach aims to re-frame student drinking as a community problem by bringing together all stakeholders needed to address it and to initiate cooperative action. We conducted a qualitative assessment of college drinking prevention efforts utilizing a telephone survey of up to eight key informants at 13 U.S. colleges and universities. We interviewed 89 campus key informants (response rate=85.6%), including directors of administration, athletics, fraternity and sorority life, health services, judicial affairs, law enforcement, mental health services, and residence life, and compared their responses to NIAAA recommendations. Respondents identified diverse on-campus membership but limited off-campus community membership and described program and policy review and increasing communication between college departments as typically utilized task force approaches. However, many respondents did not know the approaches the task force utilized. Additionally, respondents suggested several ways that task forces could be more effective, including increased commitment from members, more off-campus community members, increased leadership and support from senior administration, and more resources. We conclude that to effectively alter campus culture, task forces must utilize the NIAAA's recommendation that active coalitions should build support for addressing underage and excessive college drinking, help assure that strategies used respond to the needs of the campus community, maintain and institutionalize effective strategies, and evaluate and disseminate results to other college communities.