Alcohol Health Education Among College Drinkers

It is a combination of several intervention components, including alcohol education, personalized feedback, attitude-focused strategies, and skills training. It also included a virtual bar, where participants provide information such as sex, weight, and state so that the program can provide tailored information on blood alcohol content (BAC) as well as state regulations regarding legal limits. The program provides updated BACs based upon choices about what to consume and how quickly to consume it. The intervention is highly interactive, with text, photos, videos, and narratives for fictional students with decision points where the participant chooses what the fictional student should do. It is a non-linear environment, where participants choose which sections of the website to explore.

Personalized feedback was emailed to participants. Content included sex-specific descriptive normative information (i.e., drinks per week typically consumed by males and females at the same institution), as well as reminders of harm reduction strategies (i.e., techniques the participant reported using in their last survey, versus techniques not used).

This is an online education session directed at other health behaviors besides alcohol. The site provides practical tips on general well-being such as healthy eating, physical activity, and stress management, as well as provides information on managing health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and depression. It was not expected to influence alcohol use.