The Department of Public Health Sciences, Department of Intercollegiate Athletics and the Campus Health Center received a three-year NCAA CHOICES Grant funded at $30,000 for “Aggies Winning Choices: Awareness, Education, and Smart Decision-Making about Binge Drinking.”
The grant aims to reduce binge drinking among undergraduate students at New Mexico State University over the funding period of three years through the use of a social marketing framework and a harm reduction perspective, with the help of culturally and linguistically appropriate awareness raising and educational strategies.
The campus-wide program was developed as a collaboration between the Department of Public Health Sciences; Satya Rao, professor, undergraduate program coordinator and graduate public health certificate program coordinator and Mark J. Kittleson, department head of Public Health Services; the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics; Carmen Rogers, academic services director; and the Campus Health Center; Amanda Gallivan, health education specialist.
The effort specifically includes a collection of prevention strategies aimed at altering students’ binge drinking context and will showcase the collaboration between the university’s academic, athletic and service divisions through the active engagement of students – particularly student-athletes as advisors and peer-educators; the strategic use of informational, athletic and social events across campus for awareness raising and education that promote smart and healthy personal decision-making about alcohol use; and the targeted use of local media and other communications tools to reach out to the diverse undergraduate student body.