April 4-6, 2024 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Innovations in Health Communication
Innovations in Health Communication
Abstract: The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Disruptor of College-Aged Drinking: A Case Study of Campus Norms
Social norms approaches to address problematic drinking behavior among college students are one harm reduction strategy sometimes used to address the problem. Using an evidenced-based approach, social norms campaigns aim to change the drinking culture on a college campus by reinforcing actual norms that often demonstrate most college students don’t engage in as much drinking behavior as most students perceive. Social norms campaigns also reinforce actual injunctive norms that demonstrate that students approve of safe drinking behaviors such as eating before drinking, tracking the # of drinks, and staying with friends while socializing with alcohol. Norms develop over time and thus, correcting misperceptions in a believable way to reduce harm among college students happens over years. When the pandemic shutdown college campuses across the United States, it simultaneously shutdown almost all drinking behavior on college campuses. Social norms campaigns and other efforts to reduce problematic drinking behavior halted because most students were taking their college courses off campus, and primarily from their parents’ homes. In sum, typical college campus-related drinking behaviors were disrupted. Additionally, health information from campus wellness offers were diverted to COVID-19 prevention and detection efforts creating a vacuum of health messaging around college drinking behavior that existed for more than two years. The current project analyzes social norms data gathered before and after the COVID-19 campus shutdown to examine the disruptive role COVID-19 had in impacting student perceptions of drinking behavior at a large, land grant campus along the Northeast Corridor of the United States.
Data were collected in Spring of 2019 (n= 877) and Spring of 2022 (n=603) using a randomly selected sample of undergraduate students that was weighted for inclusion of males. Students were emailed a 15-minute survey and were awarded a $5 Starbucks gift card for completion of the survey. Survey questions asked about student’s own drinking habits, academic performance, and safety behavior as well as their perceptions of peers’ drinking behavior, norms, and beliefs. During the time frame between the two surveys, no health communication campaigns focused on student drinking behavior were implemented, providing an opportunity to examine what happens to norms in the absence of health messages that aim to correct misperceptions. Because our research team has collected social norms related drinking data as part of the National Social Norms Center’s UCelebrate survey efforts, we have an opportunity to examine how the COVID-19 campus shutdown impacted drinking behavior and social norms perceptions of college students. To that end, we will use a one-way ANOVA analysis to examine differences in individual drinking behavior, descriptive norms, and injunctive norms. Implications for social norms campaigns and the necessity of their continuity for greatest impact will be discussed. The results of this campus case study may also reflect differences in college student drinking behavior and perceptions that might be informative for current campus harm reduction efforts at other universities.
Data were collected in Spring of 2019 (n= 877) and Spring of 2022 (n=603) using a randomly selected sample of undergraduate students that was weighted for inclusion of males. Students were emailed a 15-minute survey and were awarded a $5 Starbucks gift card for completion of the survey. Survey questions asked about student’s own drinking habits, academic performance, and safety behavior as well as their perceptions of peers’ drinking behavior, norms, and beliefs. During the time frame between the two surveys, no health communication campaigns focused on student drinking behavior were implemented, providing an opportunity to examine what happens to norms in the absence of health messages that aim to correct misperceptions. Because our research team has collected social norms related drinking data as part of the National Social Norms Center’s UCelebrate survey efforts, we have an opportunity to examine how the COVID-19 campus shutdown impacted drinking behavior and social norms perceptions of college students. To that end, we will use a one-way ANOVA analysis to examine differences in individual drinking behavior, descriptive norms, and injunctive norms. Implications for social norms campaigns and the necessity of their continuity for greatest impact will be discussed. The results of this campus case study may also reflect differences in college student drinking behavior and perceptions that might be informative for current campus harm reduction efforts at other universities.