Sunday, October 6, 2024
10/6/2024
PROJECT SUMMARY Risky alcohol use and related behaviors among college students result in significant, adverse outcomes (e.g., injury, death). For example, an estimated 1,519 college student deaths each year are associated with alcohol. Accordingly, these behaviors constitute a serious public health concern that must be addressed across college campuses. NIAAA has prioritized the identification of interventions focused on reducing college drinking and these efforts have yielded a number of evidence-based strategies (EBSs), which were recently compiled in the College Alcohol Intervention Matrix (CollegeAIM; NIAAA, 2015a; 2019). CollegeAIM includes a list of evidence- based alcohol reduction strategies organized by approach (e.g., individual or environmental), cost, and level of efficacy. Colleges can use CollegeAIM to identify EBSs to implement on their campuses to combat risky drinking. Despite NIAAA prioritization and the availability of the CollegeAIM tool and existing EBSs to address risky drinking, relatively little is known about the adoption and implementation of EBSs for college drinking among stakeholders (individuals involved with EBS implementation) on college campuses, and further, to what extent CollegeAIM is used to identify EBSs for implementation. The proposed project will evaluate the use and effectiveness of CollegeAIM in the selection of EBSs for college student drinking across a statewide substance use coalition, with a long-term objective of supporting colleges’ use of CollegeAIM and thus, ultimately the implementation of EBSs to reduce risky drinking. The proposed project aims will be achieved with a mixed-methods design to assess stakeholders’ use and perspectives of the CollegeAIM tool, identify barriers and facilitators to using CollegeAIM to select appropriate interventions for their institutions, and identify institution characteristics that impact CollegeAIM use. This will be the first study to extensively evaluate CollegeAIM as a tool to identify EBSs on college campuses. The findings from the proposed project also will be instrumental in developing an organizational decision-support program, intended to be used in tandem with CollegeAIM to address college drinking, which will be evaluated in a follow-up R01 proposal. The proposed project and training of this K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award will be based at the University of Missouri, an ideal setting given the well-established training programs and group of experts across domains of alcohol research. The candidate will be mentored by Drs. Kenneth Sher and Kristin Hawley and an excellent team of collaborators who will support the candidate’s advancement through specialized training in addictions and implementation science. The candidate will gain the experience with mixed-methods design and analytic approaches and alcohol prevention research necessary to establish the candidate as an independent investigator who will be prepared to extend the findings and initiatives of the current study in future R-series proposals and well-positioned to form an implementation science research program in addictions.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
