The research project I currently work on deals with individual interventions with students that have violated the campus alcohol policy. The project seeks to determine how effective each of the three interventions are at modifying an individual's drinking behavior. We are now looking at a different approach for the next project.
We would like to use the phenomena of "word of mouth marketing" through selected peer leaders to alter the drinking behavior of a larger community, for example a single dorm on campus. This new direction interests me for its' potential to affect a larger number of people(efficiency), could be more cost effective, and the utilization of established yet growing social networks for the promotion of public health. This approach has never been taken with campus drinking. This program will be created from scratch using examples from HIV prevention strategies and from marketing strategies.
System: Syracuse University Campus Community
Suprasystem: Residence life
Subsystems:
Residence Assistants that deal directly with the student population and Residence Directors that deal with students in violation of alcohol policy.
Research team which identifies the peer leaders, conducts their training, monitors the program, and collects data.
Information Channels:
Peer leader -----> Students
Office of Residence Life
Students -----> Research Team
Subsystem Interface: Data collection through interviews and surveys. Emails. Interaction between peer leader and students.
3 comments:
Andrew,
A detailed plan of the model to be developed. Generally, it shows a good understanding of the concepts however, I would like to know what measures would be taken to assess the effectiveness of the model and if consideration is given to follow up activities.
Thank you Monica. That has been a sticking point for the project. Doing work outside of the lab setting is going to be a challenge for all of us. Assessment whether on the individual or community level will have to be choice made in the future. We do have historical data showing the level of alcohol related referrals from each dorm. We could continue to track this but it would be difficult to correlate our peer leader to any observed changes.
An interesting and unconventional educational project — I like it. Sort of to give the appearance of being a grassroots sort of thing, right? I like it and look forward to seeing where you take it.
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