A pilot study of cross-cutting e-health prevention approaches to address campus sexual assault and alcohol misuse

About This Grant

Project Summary Sexual violence (SV) and alcohol misuse are critical and interconnected problems among college students. Over 75% of campus sexual assaults involve alcohol, which has been associated with more violent assault incidents, increased self-blame, and decreased help-seeking among survivors. The college campus culture presents unique challenges at both the individual, relationship and community levels of the social ecological model to effectively reduce these destructive behaviors. Several e-health SV, alcohol misuse, and bystander interventions have been tested previously for efficacy and independently are associated with reductions in SV and binge drinking, as well as increases in bystander behaviors among college samples. However, most of these remain at the individual level of the social ecological model and are delivered independently. A comprehensive approach with preventive interventions at multiple levels of the social ecological model (i.e., individual, relationship, and community) is critical to having a population-level impact on SV and alcohol misuse. However, a comprehensive approach to SV and alcohol misuse has not been implemented or tested. The proposed research 3-Year AREA Pilot Study fills a major gap in SV and alcohol misuse prevention on college campuses by implementing and testing the feasibility of a multi-level approach consisting of six established e-health primary prevention strategies. The proposed three-phase study is innovative in that it will be the first to (1) implement a Cross Cutting e-health Prevention Program (CCePP), with six evidence-based and proven alcohol misuse and SV prevention strategies as a full package of synergistic cross-cutting interventions that target multiple levels of the social ecological model (individual, relationship, and community); and (2) asses acceptability, demand, implementation, and preliminary efficacy of the CCePP in affecting multiple cross-cutting primary and secondary outcomes. Undergraduate student researchers (URAs) will be engaged in all aspects of the proposed research. The proposed research will be implemented in three phases: Phase 1 will involve conducting two sets of focus groups to update and finalize messaging and dissemination for two of the e-health interventions including a social marketing campaign and social media campaign and the administration of a survey to conduct a norms documentation for an individual level e-health intervention; Phase 2 will involve implementing a mixed-design pilot study that includes both a randomized controlled trial and a quasi-experiment for testing the CCePP over the course of one semester to assess the acceptability, demand, implementation, and preliminary efficacy of the CCePP; and Phase 3 will involve interviews with campus stakeholders and Student Advisory Board members to examine implementation factors related to adoption and dissemination of CCePP across college in the U.S. These activities will support colleges in the adoption and sustainment of CCePP, with the goal of reducing the research-to-practice pipeline gap, and future research testing the effectiveness of implementation strategies. 8. Project