The University of Arizona’s Substance Abuse Program

The public health mission of The University of Arizona Campus Health Service is to enhance the health and safety of our students, and of the community in which they live. With regard to student alcohol use, we have three goals:

• To reduce the prevalence of heavy and high-risk drinking at the UA,
• To correct student and key stakeholder misperceptions about college alcohol use at the UA,
• To increase the effectiveness of campus alcohol policies and enforcement, and to target campus and community events traditionally associated with unsafe drinking practices for policy and enforcement change.

In order to achieve these goals, we employ a three-pronged approach:

1) Social Norms Media Campaign
2) Alcohol and Other Drug Early Intervention Program
3) Environmental Management

Social Norms Media Campaign

The UA’s social norms media campaign uses campus newspaper advertisements, posters, presentations, newsletters and cable TV networks in the residence halls to provide campus-specific student data that dispel the myth that heavy and high-risk drinking, and illegal drug use is the norm among UA students.

Alcohol and Other Drug Early Intervention Program

UA staff work hard to reach out to students who get into trouble with alcohol and/or other drugs, or are caught in violation of AOD policies and/or laws. One of the programs offered to assist such students is the SHADE (Student Health Alcohol and Drug Education) diversion program. The premise of SHADE is to present the basics of low-risk alcohol consumption for those students who choose to drink. Although abstinence is supported and a portion of the class is devoted to Arizona alcohol laws, specifically those that prohibit alcohol use by individuals under the age of 21, staff recognize that some students will continue to drink regardless of legality. Therefore, the focus of the SHADE curriculum dwells on reducing problems and risks related to alcohol use.

Throughout the six-hour SHADE curriculum, students who choose to drink learn strategies that encourage them to pace their intake, avoid intoxication, plan their consumption or non-consumption, and know when it’s time to stop drinking. Such strategies include learning to recognize a “standard drink” of alcohol, calculating personal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and knowing what risks are posed at varying levels of BAC, learning skills to moderate alcohol use, and understanding the physiological and psychological effects that alcohol has on the individual. Students also learn to identify risky situations that lead to overdrinking and how to effectively deal with these.

The goal of the program is to teach skills that promote a reduction in risk to student’s health, safety and academic success. In addition to the SHADE class, students have the opportunity to request additional help through individual consultations with professional staff.

Environmental Management

The Environmental Management model provides a social and ecological framework for substance abuse prevention which recognizes that health related behaviors are influenced not only by individual factors but by group processes, institutional factors, community factors and public policy. Through this model, UA staff strive to shape school and community policies, rules and enforcement practices so as to create an environment that supports students who don’t drink or use drugs, and reduces risk for those who do.

The five environmental facets that we target include:

• Campus AOD behavioral and attitudinal norms and expectancies,
• Campus AOD policies and procedures,
• Availability of alcohol and other drugs,
• Enforcement of AOD policies and laws, and
• Availability of alcohol-free social and recreational options.

And, we do this not only at the campus environment level, but also at the community and state environment levels. Successful achievement of our goals relies heavily upon the partnerships that we build at each level:

• Campus Task Force – the campus level; partnerships with campus law enforcement, the Dean of Students office, Greek Life and student clubs and organizations, residence life, commuter programs office, faculty and students.
• Campus and Community Coalition – the community level; partnerships with neighborhood associations, city council members, liquor distributors and local tavern owners, AZ Department of Liquor License and Control, local community coalitions and task forces.
• Associations of Colleges and Universities – the state and national level; state university partnerships through the Arizona Institutions of Higher Education (AZIHE) Network*; AZIHE Network partnerships with key state governmental stakeholders, membership/leadership in The Network: Addressing Collegiate Alcohol and Other Drug Issues (national organization sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education) and the Statewide Initiative Leadership Institute (sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention).

For more information regarding college drinking:

Fact Sheet for College Alcohol Abuse Prevention

NIAAA Task Force website