Skip Navigation
College Drinking Prevention - Changing the Culture

Stats & Summaries NIAAA College Materials Supporting Research Other Alcohol Information NewSpecial Features
College Presidents College Parents College Students H.S. Administrators H.S. Parents & Students
NIAAA College Materials

What Colleges Need to Know Now: An Update on College Drinking Research

A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges

Panel Reports

College Drinking Statistical Papers

College Fact Sheet for Parents

Brochures

Reducing Alcohol Problems on Campus: A Guide to Planning and Evaluation

Whole College Catalog

Prevention Curriculum

NIAAA Alcohol Alert

Tips For Cutting Down on Drinking

Alcohol Alert #68 Young Adult Drinking

 
Helpful Tools

In the News

Join Our Listserv

Links

Order Publications

Link to Us

E-mail this Page

Print this Page


Program Evaluation: The Big Picture

Newcomers to the topic of college student drinking are often puzzled to learn that the field’s knowledge of “what works” is relatively slim. Apart from some recent and promising interventions aimed at individual students, the conscientious program planner will find little empirical evidence to guide choices of program and policy interventions aimed at the broader college population. The irony is that this failing is observed precisely in those settings—institutions of higher education—where the commitment to empirical research is high, and expertise in evaluation is readily available.

Two men playing basketball

The broader field of prevention research, which has examined the impact of programs and policies aimed at youth in the general population, provides useful guidance. Indeed, the NIAAA Task Force’s report, A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges, relied to a great extent on this broader literature when identifying recommended prevention strategies for higher education administrators. Even so, it is clear that evaluations of environmentally focused prevention strategies that focus specifically on college populations are sorely needed.

We are urging higher education administrators to incorporate evaluation as an integral part of program planning, which we view to be essential to developing more effective prevention programs and policies. Beyond that, however, we hope that administrators will realize that the evaluations they undertake will also contribute significantly to our knowledge of what works, thereby helping other institutions make wise choices when designing their programs. There is a common goal that all colleges and universities share: to create the conditions that will allow students at our Nation’s institutions of higher education to develop their full potential. Conducting and then sharing the results of evaluations of alcohol prevention efforts is necessary to meet that goal.

 

Previous | Back to Table of Contents | Next

Historical document
Last reviewed: 9/23/2005


Home
About Us
Awards
Site Map
FAQ
Accessibility
Plug-Ins
Privacy Policy
Contact Us
Web site Policies
Disclaimer

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
National Institute of Health
Freedom of Information Act
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
USA.Gov