AlcoholEDU helping to reduce alcohol-related harm on campus

As part of a new requirement that began last fall, freshmen and new students need to complete the mandatory online AlcoholEDU course by Oct. 12.

According to Daniel Duryea, Ph.D., director of the program, the alcohol awareness course includes educational components, surveys, pre-tests and an exam.

Duryea explained that the three-hour long course does more than give a scientific overview of what alcohol is and the dangers of drinking. The program was designed to be a part of a larger approach to lessen the effects of high-risk drinking at UB.

"The idea is that if we had every first year class for the next four years take AlcoholEDU at some point, everybody who is in attendance at UB will have been exposed to the information," Duryea said.

The 2006 incoming class was the first to complete the course as a requirement of the University. Duryea calls the AlcoholEDU program the cornerstone of an approach started two years ago to develop a comprehensive program to reduce alcohol-related harm on campus.

Outside the Classroom, a company that prepares online alcohol-prevention courses for various colleges nation-wide, designed AlcoholEDU for college.

"They designed these programs; they pilot and test them and solicit feedback from all the schools in the United States," Duryea said. "It is a nice way to gather information about the incoming freshmen class."

According to Duryea, the information collected about the freshmen class from the surveys within the program will be used by Wellness Education Services to fight the misconceptions students have about how many students participate in drinking and other high-risk behaviors.

"Essentially, we want to find out what are the norms at UB are and then, at some point, have a campaign that lets students know that their perceptions that everybody is doing everything (heavy drinking, smoking cigarettes, using marijuana) is much less in reality," he said.

According to Duryea, AlcoholEDU has been a successful part of UB's comprehensive program to reduce alcohol-related harm on campus. A comparison made between percentages from students before completing the course and after completion supports the validity of the program.

The current figures were derived from the sub-surveys of AlcoholEDU taken by incoming freshmen in 2006.

"The number of students who reported that they think about their blood alcohol content (BAC) increased from 37 percent in part one to 56 percent, when they completed AlcoholEDU," Duryea said.

He explained that the course was successful in changing people's thoughts and behaviors in terms of prevention among the population, even though the percentages seem low.

"Another important finding is the number of students who developed an awareness of the need to change the way they drink from 19 percent in part one, to 28 percent at the end of part two," Duryea said.

Within the three hours of the course, students are taught to be aware of personal blood alcohol content levels while drinking. According to the 2006 AlcoholEDU survey, 69 percent of students said after the course that they know about their BAC.

Duryea said this was a great achievement because students should be aware that the negative consequences that follow drinking usually occur when someone's BAC is higher than it should be. This is a principle method of teaching students how to keep safe. Wellness Education Services calls this "staying in the green zone."

"If students are more aware of what their BAC should be, they can drink in a way that leads to less negative consequences," he said.

As part of Wellness Education Services' comprehensive program to reduce alcohol-related harm on campus, individualized BAC charts based on weight and gender are free for UB students to take and use to keep themselves in the "green zone."

Along with the distribution of personalized blood alcohol concentration cards, peer educators from UBE110 have taken the highlights of AlcoholEDU and brought it to the classrooms of UB101.

According to Duryea, UB Safer is a program also started as part of the larger project. The program helps to avoid further risk from UB students who have violated the University alcohol policy and other drug policies.

"People need to appreciate that not everyone can consume the same amount of alcohol in the same amount of time and have the same effects," Duryea said.

The program's goal is to help deal with one of the primary and frequent occurring issue for college students - how to make healthy and safe decisions about alcohol. The deadline for completing part two, which consists of Module 4 and Survey 3, is Friday, Oct. 12.

"Students who have not passed the exam for part one should still continue and finish part two. Part two only takes ten to fifteen minutes," Duryea said.