What's in it for you?
Alcohol is all too often seen as an accepted part of college life, but there are things that campuses and communities can do to significantly reduce students' risky drinking and related problems.

Despite increasingly strong research evidence both about the harms associated with student drinking and the effectiveness of interventions that can reduce those harms, many campuses and communities are reluctant to implement those interventions.

Why is that?
In some cases it's just easier to do nothing and hope for the best. Others are content with sticking with business as usual approaches to prevention-health fairs and education efforts to make sure that students at least understand the adverse consequences associated with alcohol use and will behave in a way to minimize those risks (count drinks, have plenty of food at parties, no driving after drinking) and if they do get into trouble with alcohol they know where to get help.

Education is necessary but not sufficient
After decades of educational and persuasive activities aimed at altering individual drinking behavior, high-risk drinking continues to be perceived as normal behavior for college students and almost 40 percent report having five or more drinks on an occasion.

What's to be done?
Campuses and communities that implement the evidence-based interventions of the Safer California Universities project can expect see reductions in student intoxication, medical emergency transports, and rowdy house parties. But in addition to these health and safety benefits, campuses and communities that implemented the Safer California Universities interventions experienced better town/gown relationships.

Shifting the focus from people to environments
Based on the Safer California Universities research, the Safer Campuses and Communities interventions shift the focus from problem people to problem environments. They have demonstrated that linking specific problems to specific environments to specific strategies can lead to reduction in intoxication and other problems associated with student parties where heavy drinking takes place.

Why Care about College Student Drinking?
This powerpoint provides an overview of problems related to student drinking and summarizes the NIAAA-funded Safer California Universities research project demonstrating the effectiveness of Safer Campuses and Communities interventions. Use this PowerPoint to inform stakeholders and others about how shifting the focus of campus and community prevention efforts to problem environments can, in fact, reduce problems associated with off-campus parties and improve neighborhood relations.  

What do others thinks about the Safer Campuses and Communities Approach?
Click here to view testimonials from campus and community officials who were involved in the Safer California Universities interventions, including law enforcement and community residents, on why this is a good approach.

Press accounts on the Safer California Universities interventions. Media coverage played an important
role in the successes of the project in reducing problems related to unruly off-campus house parties. In fact, for the enforcement operations to be effective, they must be made visible to the students and community at large. Click here to read press accounts of the impact of the Safer California Universities interventions.