Environmental Strategies for Prevention
A Guide To Helping the Prevention Professional Work Effectively in the Community

Module 3: Putting Environmental Strategies To Work - Page 25 of 28

Applying the Environmental Strategies

The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention's What Campuses Are Doing features examples showing how universities and colleges across the country have applied some of these environmental strategies to high-risk drinking in campus communities. Some of these efforts are highlighted below.

As a result of Operation Prevent, one local tavern owner turned over 35 altered or fake driver's licenses to the Syracuse Police Department.

In Ohio, the presidents of 49 colleges and universities joined the Ohio Parents for Drug-Free Youth coalition and signed a letter pledging to make alcohol abuse prevention a priority at their institutions. At Miami University of Ohio, in Oxford, prevention staff conducted an environmental assessment as part of their participation in the Ohio Parents for Drug-Free Youth community exchange program. One hundred students taking courses in the health education department at Miami volunteered to participate in the environmental assessment process using the College Alcohol Risk Assessment Guide (CARA). Students used the guide to gather observations on aspects of the environment that could affect alcohol use-such as opportunities available for socializing on campus, visibility of alcohol problems and issues, and alcohol promotion on and off campus and in other situations.

Prevention staff at the university used the results of the environmental assessment to plan a campaign to change social norms, promote alcohol-free activities, and adopt other policies that address high-risk alcohol use on campus and in the community.

North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, created the Collaborative Alcohol Management Project for University Success (CAMPUS) Community Coalition as part of a statewide initiative to help address high-risk and illegal alcohol and other drug use on campus. The CAMPUS coalition is a consortium of North Carolina campus representatives and Raleigh community members. The consortium includes student leaders, health educators, and campus safety officials, as well as members from Raleigh local businesses, governing boards, and law enforcement agencies.

Among the projects is an educational program to raise awareness about alcohol poisoning. The program was developed following anecdotal data that revealed students were unaware of the dangers of alcohol poisoning. Since the awareness program began, calls to Campus Police reporting possible alcohol poisoning have increased, indicating that students and other community members are more aware of the health risks posed by alcohol.

Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College (LCOOCC) in Hayward, Wisconsin, is a small, tribally controlled institution of about 500 students. Substance abuse problems in the community have made prevention a priority at LCOOCC. All members of the community -- college staff, tribal representatives, students, administrators, and residents of the neighboring community -- have joined together to plan and implement a prevention plan. A central component is the infusion of a prevention component in the curriculum of all departments at LCOOCC. Every department incorporates at least 3 hours of instructional time per semester to topics and concepts concerning alcohol and other drug abuse. All faculty, staff, and their families are invited to participate in prevention activities along with students.

The LCOOCC Curriculum Infusion Program is one of Five Exemplary Programs recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

In Washington, DC, a Campus Alcohol Reduction Effort (CARE) involves administrators from seven residential Washington, D.C. universities, the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department, nonprofit organizations battling alcohol abuse, and investigators for the Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) board. CARE features a three-pronged approach to reduce alcohol-related problems at the universities and in their communities:

Local laws prevent establishments from soliciting underage students. University administrators helped local authorities enforce this and other laws. CARE members collected bar fliers distributed on campus, which resulted in $35-per-flier fine for violators of the law. ABC investigators used flier information to target establishments that routinely served underage drinkers.

In response to an increase in alcohol-related incidents in 1999, Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, took a number of steps to address underage and problem drinking. Two of the tactics were increasing patrols in the campus residential area around the stadium prior to football games, and making physical changes to a senior residential area close to the stadium that had attracted underage "tailgating." The college tracked information from infirmary reports and judicial records over a year's time to evaluate the results of the changes. During the first 6 weeks of the effort, the number of students sent to the infirmary for alcohol intoxication was reduced by 46 percent. Alcohol-related incidents in the targeted areas were reduced overall by 33 percent, and alcohol-related incidents involving freshmen in the same areas were reduced by 88 percent.

In Syracuse, New York, a collaborative effort of Syracuse University, Le Moyne College, the Syracuse Police Department, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Onondaga County District Attorney's Office, the New York State Liquor Authority, and the New York State Police targeted the use of false IDs among Syracuse University Students under the legal drinking age.

The collaboration was sparked by the results of a 2002 survey of Syracuse students, most of them under the age of 21, that found that 11 percent were injured as a result of drinking, 15 percent drove under the influence, and 16 percent rode as passengers with a drunk driver.

A subcommittee of the coalition worked for 18 months to create "Operation Prevent." During the first two sting operations, conducted in spring 2003, police arrested 95 individuals for using fake IDs and 38 individuals for underage drinking. Ten people were arrested for the sale of alcoholic beverages to underage persons. As a result of Operation Prevent, one local tavern owner turned over 35 altered or fake driver's licenses to the Syracuse Police Department.

The University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, created the PACE Project to reduce high-risk drinking in the university community. PACE stands for the project's strategies of "Policy," "Alternatives," "Community," and "Education." The PACE project was a recipient of the Robert Wood Johnson A Matter of Degree (AMOD) award, a national effort to reduce high-risk drinking among students.

One of PACE Project's largest successes involved limiting drink-special promotions in downtown Madison. During the fall of 2002, 25 bars and nightclubs voluntarily agreed to limit the use of special drink promotions on weekends. A review of the change revealed that over a 6-month period, incidents of disorderly conduct on Friday nights decreased by 35 percent compared with the same period the year before. Incidents of vandalism decreased by 28 percent and liquor law violations decreased by 16 percent.

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