VCU Office of Health Promotion wins alcohol- and drug-prevention grant

By Tom Gresham

Virginia Commonwealth University has been awarded a federal grant to help support alcohol- and drug-prevention efforts in light of its history of innovative programs on campus.

The VCU Office of Health Promotion was awarded the Model Program Grant for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. The U.S. Department of Education issued the $75,825 grant. VCU was one of seven colleges and universities across the country selected.

Linda Hancock, assistant director of the Office of Health Promotion, said the grant would allow her office to continue its social norms marketing campaign, its annual student drug- and alcohol-use survey and other programs over the next 15 months.

The social norms campaign has been the central piece of the Office of Health Promotion’s work for the past four years. The campaign aims to demonstrate to students the gap between their perception of typical behavior and the reality of it.

Hancock said thorough studies have shown that most VCU students practice healthy lifestyles, despite common beliefs among students that they do not. Binge drinking and smoking, for example, are not nearly as widespread as students believe. Hancock said focusing on the students’ healthy behavior promotes more healthy behavior and reduces the pressures to drink alcohol to excess and to consume other drugs.

Hancock noted that media reports, which tend to highlight instances of problem behavior, give students the misleading impression that “most kids don’t have a good head on their shoulders.

“The majority of students often think they’re in the minority, because it’s the problems that get so much attention,” Hancock said. “But (those students are) not alone at all. Once they know there are many more like them, it’s so freeing.”

The Office of Health Promotion has developed a Web site for the school’s social norms program, www.yourstrategy.org, and uses the school’s “Clickers in the Classroom” program to engage freshman students in interactive critical thinking exercises that help them examine the illusions they might have about their peers’ habits.

For students with alcohol and drug problems, the Office of Health Promotion also has programs to help them overcome addiction.

The Office of Health Promotion is part of the University Student Health Services and the Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Services. Further information is available from the Office of Health Promotion at (804) 828-9355.