Improving Evaluation of Campus Drug Prevention Programs

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The potent physical, psychological, and social consequences of drug use by college students are as serious as those associated with alcohol use (if not more so), and underscore the need for prevention programming that r eaches a majority of students. Beyond drug use, college students face health risks from alcohol use, tobacco use, unhealthy diet and inadequate physical activity, stress, and unsafe sexual behavior. To address drug use and other health risks Inflexxion has developed a comprehensive college health risk intervention called MyStudentBody.com (MSB). MSB is an innovative group of Web-based programs specifically targeting college students that aims to reduce health risks by providing tailored health information i n the critical areas of drugs, alcohol, STDs, tobacco, stress, and nutrition, and physical activity. Many schools measure student health risk behavior, but very few use systematic means of measuring the efficacy of health risk programming. Empirical findin gs are often not used to support intervention strategies or measure outcomes, due in part to the lack of reliable and timely methods of gathering data to support campus administrators and health professionals in this endeavor. There is a critical need for effective tools to gather data on the effectiveness of campus health initiatives and measure outcomes. The proposed product, Campus Benchmark, will be a key component in Inflexxion's effort to build a comprehensive prevention infrastructure for college cam puses. The product will provide school administrators and health professionals with a reliable, and user-controlled method for measuring the efficacy and outcomes of prevention programming over time, through a flexible, highly customizable platform. School s will be able to assess their students risk behaviors, on a user-determined schedule, and store, aggregate, and present data graphically so administrators can utilize survey results without need of a statistician or research analyst, and in a way that pro tects the privacy of the students. An important innovation of Campus Benchmark will be the building of a large, national database through which participating institutions can upload and compare their data with a de-identified data set. With nearly 750,000 students currently using MSB, this database will become a significant resource for the field of college health research. This product will help Inflexxion provide the most comprehensive and innovative college health programming available in the marketplace . By providing the critical links between the scientifically-based intervention methods developed and validated though our MSB research, and the program implementation component that is currently being developed through the Campus Task Force project, Campu s Benchmark will allow Inflexxion to offer the college health market a complete, integrated solution, linking intervention (MSB), evaluation (Campus Benchmark), and program development and dissemination (Campus Task Force).NARRATIVE Public Health R elevance: Campus Benchmark program will help Inflexxion provide the most comprehensive and innovative health risk prevention programming for the college health market. By providing the critical link between the scientifically- based intervention methods de veloped and validated though our MSB RCTs, and the program implementation component that is currently being developed through the Campus Task Force project, Campus Benchmark will allow Inflexxion to offer the college health market a comprehensive, integrat ed solution, linking intervention (MSB), evaluation (Campus Benchmark), and program development and dissemination (Campus Task Force).