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It’s possible that an animated cartoon character named Susie might be the key to helping some college students come to grips with the frequency in which they drink and drive.
Stuart Usdan, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, is working with researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham to pilot test an interactive Web-based program called the Impaired Driving Assessment. The program, whose development has been sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, guides students through a five-week Web-based assessment with detailed information about their drinking and driving habits.
“It’s not just a general survey; it’s tied to specific dates and times to help students get a true picture of how much they drink and how often they drive afterwards,” Usdan said. “It can be a low-key form of intervention to get students’ attention.”
When students log in to www.drivestraight.com, they’re greeted by Susie, a blonde, college-aged cartoon character who helps them point and click their way through the previous five weeks. Using a computer mouse, they drag beer mugs, cars, and other icons to particular dates on a digital calendar. After all of the information is entered, the program distills it into a synopsis of how much they drank, with whom, how often and far they drove after imbibing, and what their estimated blood alcohol level was at the time.
“Health educators have found that students tend to minimize the number of times they drink and drive,” Usdan said. “By completing the Impaired Driving Assessment, a student might realize that he really has been underestimating—that in one evening he’s actually driving several times after drinking.”
Laura Talbott, director of USC’s Alcohol and Drug Programs and a doctoral candidate in health promotion, education, and behavior, is familiar with the Impaired Driving Assessment project.
“We have to change with each generation of students; they like technology, and this program uses innovative technology to provide an individualized assessment of each student,” Talbott said. “This basically is a harm-reduction technique for working with a high-risk population: students who drink and drive.”
Usdan will involve 25 USC students in a pilot study of the project. A larger sample of students will be tested at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“We’re talking about developing the next generation of this project that will have students using their Palm Pilots to keep a diary of their daily alcohol use,” Usdan said. “A lot of students use those devices already, so why not take advantage of this technology?”
2/05
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