Reducing drinking and related harms in college: Evaluation of the "A Matter of Degree" program

"Reducing Drinking and Related Harms in College: Evaluation of the 'A Matter of Degree' Program" was conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. Between 1997 through 2001 ten colleges with high levels of heavy and problem drinking, along with their surrounding communities, participated in the ongoing program. The evaluation measures patterns of program implementation and effects of the program on frequent, heavy and 'binge' drinking, harms and secondhand effects of alcohol consumption. For this phase of the evaluation, drinking and harm patterns from the ten AMOD schools were compared to patterns at 32 matched colleges from the national Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study. Findings include that an environmental prevention program targeting heavy and harmful drinking such as AMOD can be implemented within college communities and that where program implementation emphasizes changes to alcohol availability and larger cultural factors, college communities experience significant reductions in levels of heavy alcohol consumption including binge drinking and related harms as well as reducations in secondhand effects. Changing the conditions that shape drinking-related choices, opportunities and consequences for drinkers and those that supply them with alcohol, appear to be key ingredients to an effective public health prevention program.