Online Parent-Based College Alcohol Prevention

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application proposes the first phase toward development and testing of an online alcohol prevention education resource for parents of college students, MyStudentBody(MSB)-Parent. MSB-Parent will be offered by colleges and universities to parents of incoming students to help promote alcohol risk reduction education as students make the transition to college life. This project is timely given the recent focus on parent involvement in young adult lives. Current NIAAA and NIDA initiatives support research for examining the role of parents as agents for influencing college alcohol and other drug use. Research demonstrates that parents continue to have a significant influence on their young adult children, particularly across the transition to college when alcohol use and other risk behaviors markedly increase. MSB-Parent will incorporate features demonstrated to improve parent-child communication, and reduce dangerous drinking among college students. MSB-Parent will harness Web technologies to create a truly innovative approach to parent-based prevention efforts that incorporates engaging graphics, animation, interactive polls, quizzes, and tools, and established school-specific local, regional and national resources. Formative research will include surveys of parents and college health professionals, focus groups with college students, and concept-mapping procedures. A demonstration website will be developed and submitted to usability and acceptance testing by parent and college professional end-users to demonstrate feasibility. MSB-Parent will complement a comprehensive suite of online prevention programs for college students currently being successfully marketed to schools nationwide. The incidence of risky alcohol and other drug use increases across the transition to college. The short- and long-term economic, social, and societal costs of dangerous drinking among young adults are tremendous. Parents can play an important role in providing prevention education to facilitate reduction of risks associated with alcohol.