At UMass Amherst, the state's flagship university with an undergraduate population of 18,500, we have implemented SBI for all alcohol policy violators as a judicial intervention since January 2006. This SBI implementation was part of a strategic plan to build an effective, comprehensive prevention program and made possible through the funding of a 3 year grant from The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). 95% of our caseload of 2,600 to date, are mandated referrals, with the remainder comprised of protective custody, medical transports for acute alcohol overdose, mental health and medical provider referral, or self-referral. BASICS is comprised of two 50 minute individual sessions with a trained Master Level Prevention Specialist. The core components of effective intervention described in the NIAAA report, as well as the guiding philosophy of being non-judgmental and non-confrontational, are fundamental to the BASICS program. In the first session, a prevention specialist explains the program and builds rapport using motivational interviewing techniques to identify consumption patterns, associated consequences and other behaviors that may contribute to the student's health risk. They review the meaning of a drink, define blood alcohol concentration, and prepare students for completing a self-monitoring drinking card before the second session. The student complets an online assessment in the office before leaving. In approximately two weeks, the student returns for a second session. The prevention specialist and student discuss the personalized feedback that was generated by the initial assessment, and when appropriate, create a behavioral change plan together. Referrals are offered if necessary.

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The BASICS program at UMass Amherst has been implemented systemically and systematically and with fidelity and integrity to theory. Widespread support was obtained from key stakeholders; assessment and feedback protocols and tools were developed, tested and refined; health promotion, mental health and medical staff were trained to conduct brief interventions and refer students; and a sustainability plan was created to ensure program institutionalization.

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A quasi-experimental design was used. The intervention group completed an online assessment of their drinking upon intake. The survey included questions from sources such as the Boston University School of Public Health's Massachusetts Campus Comunity Partnership Initiative; College Alcohol Survey, CORE Alcohol and Drug Survey; RAPI; Daily Drinking Questionnaire; Readiness to Change Scale; and Family History Questionnaire. Two weeks afer intake, students completed the second BASICS session and received personalized feedback based on their intake data. A six-month follow-up survey identical to intake was e-mailed to participants consenting to the evaluation; they completed the survey online and responses were recoreded in a database for later analysis. A stratified comparision sample approximating the BASICS group based on gender and class year was drawn from the campus at large. This sample was screened using AUDIT-Consumption questions to identify a subsample of students whose alcohol use grossly mirrored that of BASICS participants from the first two semesters of program implementation. The difference in mean total AUDIT scores between the comparison (n=506) and BASICS (n=564) groups was not statistically significant (9.4 versus 10.6 respectively), suggesting that drinking habits of each group were fairly similar. The comparison group completed the same intake and six-month follow-uup online surveys as the BASICS group.

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Results from our quasi-expermintal design indicate that students who participate in BASICS show significant reduction sin high risk drinking rates and consequences compared to those who did not receive the intervention. At six-months, there are statistically significatn reductions in nuimber of drinks when partying, peak number of drinks, typical and peak BAC, binge drinking and frequent binge drinking. Non participants show an increase in these measures over six-month follow-up. An important aspect of our SBI is that it is situated within a comprehensive, environmental aqpproach to reduce high risk drinking among UMass Amherst students. An individual intervention of this type is supported on the campus by enhanced alcohol policy and enforcement, new town bylaws requiring keg registration, social host/nuisance house ordiance, ope container bylaws, a social norms marketing campaign with a 96% visibility, a retail partners committee, and on online alcohol course requirement for all first year and transfer students. These strategies combined have resulted in a 38% reduction in heavy episodic drinking, frequent heavy episodic drinking down by 26%, and a 14% drop in underage heavy episodic drinking. Our program evaluation reveals that a mandated population is in fact a high risk drinking population, as 86% score 8 or higher on the AUDIT at intake. This has been instrumental in convincing residence life and judicial staff to hold students accountable for alcohol policy violations, as they now have data to disprove the misbelief that students are just in the wrong place at the wrong time and that they are really not high risk drinkers. SBI has changed the way our campus treats alcohol abuse, leads to stepped care referrals and is well supported by students.

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When part of a strategic comprehensive prevention program and when delivered with fidelity qand integrity to theory, SBIs decrease the amount of high risk drinking on campus and assit in identifing high risk drinkers. Alcohol negatively impacts students and the community in many ways, screening for high risk students and providing an evidence-based intervention is one of a multi-facated approach to reducing the consequences of high risk drinking.

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