Alcohol Harm Prevention Program

Alcohol Harm Prevention Program- is a normative education and skill-acquisition program that focuses on preventing harm.  Without admonishing students not to drink, the AHP program attempts to give students the necessary perceptions, motivation, and skills to intervene within their peer group and to make proactive harm-avoidance plans with friends prior to social occasions that involve the use of alcohol.

Program Design:  The main approach of this program is on the prevention of harm which  focuses on harm-prevention behavior.  The program works on the premise that risk taking would be reduced for each college student to the extent that individual students were willing and able to make harm-prevention plans relating to their, or their friends’ alcohol use.   It would also be reduced to the extent that each student would be able to take harm-prevention action when potentially harmful situations arose.  So, the program is designed to increase student motivation and skill regarding these two kinds of actions:  harm prevention planning and intervention.

• It is a two-session, in-class intervention.

• During the first session students are introduced to the program; the presenter sets the stage for the pre-test by discussing how we form perceptions; explaining the scientific method, and the confidential or anonymous nature of the study.

• During the second session the results of the in-class survey are reviewed through the power-point presentation which reveals norms based on the data collected from their groups (PSU-3 classes).

• Interactive discussion is used to collectively problem solve scenarios relating to high risk situations.

• A homework assignment encourages students to identify and reinforce harm prevention planning and strategies.

• A web-based post-test is sent six weeks after the second session.

        Goals:

• To prevent serious harm from decisions made concerning alcohol use.

• To look at the Actual versus the Perceived norms for:

Risk taking (excessive use of alcohol, is it O.K. for a woman to require a man to use  a condom), caring about friends (do you care if something bad happens to one of your friends- like unwanted sex, or a bad accident), intervening to prevent a high risk alcohol related situation (like drinking and driving, chugging contests, chugging hard liquor), alcohol use and non-use.

·        Intent and skill or ability to make plans to reduce harm (getting into a vehicle, if I do something stupid, etc.)

       Measurement of Success:

       Outcomes:

• Increase the perception of students caring about the well-being of friends

• Increase the perception that risky behaviors are generally unacceptable

• Increase skills relating to harm-prevention planning and intervention

• Increase intention to intervene in potentially harmful situations

•  Increase intention to make harm-prevention plans with friends

• Decrease the perception of general peer use of alcohol

• Increase the perception of peer non-use of alcohol

     Program Results:

• That it is O.K. for students to care about one another and in fact that they do

• That risk-taking is generally not acceptable

• That students in general drink less than previously thought

• That for students in general, non-use is more prevalent than previously thought

•  That the program had a direct effect on the intention or motivation to prevent harm from coming to their friends, and the intention to make vehicle related plans

• The program also had a direct effect on increasing the skills necessary to make plans related to preventing alcohol-related harm.

Contact Dr. Joy Himmel, Health & Wellness Center for additional information.  (814) 949-5540, jyh1@psu.edu