Clarion University Awarded Grant for Dangerous Drinking App

| July 15, 2019


CLARION, Pa. (EYT) – Clarion University is moving forward with programs to help students face issues with alcohol and other substances with the assistance of a grant from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB).

Clarion University was one of the schools who received a PLCB grant, in the amount of $19,035, to implement eCHECKUP TO GO, a college-specific app for online prevention interventions.

The new app will fit with some of the other programs that the university has already been using, according to Stephan Brooks, coordinator of health promotions, alcohol programs and other drug programs at Clarion University.

“We have two primary prevention and intervention programs, BASICS and CASICS,” Brooks explained.

Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS) is a harm-reduction intervention for college students that aims to reduce alcohol consumption, promote healthier choices, and provide information and coping skills for reducing risk. CASICS is a similar program dealing with cannabis rather than alcohol.

“With those, as they were originally designed, eCHUG and eTOKE were to be utilized with them. Since we had so much success with those programs, we decided to move forward and get eCHECKUP TO GO.”

The eCHECKUP TO GO programs, which were designed at San Diego State University, are personalized, evidence-based, online prevention interventions to deal with alcohol, cannabis, sexual violence, and tobacco.

“The programs are 100 percent anonymous,” Brooks noted.

“Even if a student is assigned to use the program through sanctioning, they would get a unique code only they have access to, and they don’t have to worry about staff or administration seeing their results.”

According to Brooks, the programs walk the students through a screening process where they answer a number of questions, and the program then develops a feedback response based on their answers, telling them where they are doing well, where they may need improvement, and how they can make changes, while also offering information on campus and community resources.

Over 600 colleges and universities across the nation are already utilizing the program, and it has also had more than ten peer-reviewed journal articles published.

With the implementation of the new program slated for this fall, Brooks said the university hopes to continue combatting alcohol and drug issues on campus even more successfully than before.

“In the last five years, we’ve already reduced our recidivism rate, with students who get into trouble with alcohol, to about two to six percent.”


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