Developing innovative, evidence-based behavioral interventions for the prevention of alcohol and other drug use among college student-athletes

There is an inherent gap between the importance of behavioral factors on student-athlete health and fair completion, and the effectiveness of today’s behavioral programs or interventions at modifying these behavioral factors. At best, theories of human development are used to design interventions that target the reduction of risk and the enhancement of protective factors at the individual, familial, peer, community, and environmental levels. Research suggests that in order to produce the greatest effects, behavioral interventions ought to target the most malleable risk and protective factors, asses the efficacy and effectiveness of interventions, and identify means for advancing Type II translational research (dissemination and diffusion). Frequently, interventions target attitudes such as social norms (descriptive and injunctive), motives for use or outcome expectancies (positive and negative), as well as life skills such as healthy decision making, communication, and goal setting. The purpose of this paper is to outline the necessary steps for developing innovative, evidence-based behavioral interventions. This will be accomplished by sharing lessons learned from the development of a National Institute on Drug Abuse funded, web-based alcohol and other drug use intervention. The application of the following essential steps to intervention development will be discussed: Identification of scientifically established mediators of behavior change (risk and protective factors), development of a theoretical program model that includes important mediating and moderating variables, packaging intervention components for efficient delivery to the most appropriate audience, pilot testing and implementation of the intervention, program evaluation to determine efficacy , and Type II translation to promote sustainability.