Title of Project: Northeastern University Assistance Program
U01 Researcher Collaborator: Mary Larimer, Ph.D.
NIAAA Scientific Staff Collaborator: Ralph Hingson, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Summary:
Northeastern University’s University Assistance Program (UAP) represents a novel collegiate intervention approach derived from Employee Assistance and Student Assistance Program methodologies designed to affect the following two outcomes:
a reduction in the prevalence of problem drinking and its adverse health effects among the student body; and
a reduction in police activity, property damage, and related security costs to Northeastern and its surrounding community related to student problem drinking.
The investigative approach for these outcomes will include: 1) a true-experimental longitudinal research design to assess behavioral outcomes among students participating in the UAP; and 2) a quasi-experimental longitudinal trend study of three annual cohorts to measure the overall changes in problems associated with student drinking at Northeastern. This approach will yield data to advance four specific research objectives:
to determine if the UAP helps reduce student problem drinking and thereby helps increase academic performance;
to improve attitudinal and perceptual outcomes among students, including reducing positive alcohol expectancies, and increasing knowledge of the UAP and Northeastern’s policies related to student alcohol use;
to determine if the UAP helps reduce property damage and public safety costs to the university and the surrounding community related to student problem drinking; and
to develop a research partnership between Northeastern and established alcohol research scientists to exchange information and design interventions to prevent and reduce alcohol-related problems among college students.
The Northeastern UAP is designed to prevent alcohol problems among students through educational efforts and to offer easy access to assistance for students struggling with alcohol problems as well as those students affected by someone else’s alcohol use. The UAP will begin development of services to students and commence research activities in Fall 2005.
