Health Promotion Education in the Systems Engineering Curriculum.

Ellen J. BassAssociate Professor

Department of Systems and Information Engineering

Susan E. BruceDirector, Gordie Center for Alcohol & Substance Education

Department of Student Health

The social norms approachApproach to fixing exaggerated beliefs about the normal frequency and consumption habits of others with regard to alcohol

The social norms approach has been used to counter misperceptions

The social norms approach

Social Norms Approach

Collect baseline data

Develop simple, truthful, and consistent messages that highlight lower-risk drinking norms and protective behaviors

Ensure credibility of the message source

Deliver the message to the target population

Support message retention within the population

A “natural link” between human factors engineers and the social norms approach

Human Factors Engineering Social Norms Approach

Characterize end user decision making

Collect baseline data

Develop functional requirements

Develop simple, truthful, and consistent messages that highlight lower-risk drinking norms and protective behaviors

User review/testing Ensure credibility of the message source

Field test Deliver the message to the target population

Iterate toward the final product

Support message retention within the population

Path to the embrace of the social norms approach

An evolving career that includes:• Characterizing and modeling human judgment and decision

making• Developing methods to design and evaluate decision support

interventions• Developing methods to design and evaluate training• Focusing on projects with tangible impact on society

– Engaging students and collaborators in meaningful research and design (to me and to them)

• Developing pedagogical interventions that are effective and engage students

• Risk taking– Not following the traditional path– Ignoring those who do not share the value system

Path to the embrace of the social norms approach

An evolving career that includes:• Characterizing and modeling human judgment and decision

making• Developing methods to design and evaluate decision support

interventions• Developing methods to design and evaluate training• Focusing on projects with tangible impact on society

– Engaging students and collaborators in meaningful research and design (to me and to them)

• Developing pedagogical interventions that are effective and engage students

• Risk taking– Not following the traditional path– Ignoring those who do not share the value system

Developing pedagogical interventions that are effective and engage students

Pedagogical interventions that engage the students

• Social norm marketing campaigns– Senior design projects– Independent studies

• Also alcohol education through curriculum infusion– Class case studies

• Engages students in engineering course content and alcohol education

Senior Design

The Foxfield Races

Beta Test• “Sample

– EDHS 224, Substance Abuse and Society– SYS 3034, Systems Evaluation– Fraternity

Foxfield Halloween Foxfield Halloween

# of Drinks

Hours Drinking

Curriculum Infusion in System Evaluation Course

Are the Foxfield Races an event that CASE should investigate or would resources be better utilized on other events?

 

Should resources to educate students on high-risk drinking at Foxfield be applied to all students?

 

What are the negative consequences of student drinking at Foxfield, if any? Are students potentially engaging in drunk driving?

 

Are students well-prepared for the day at Foxfield? Do they have enough food and non-alcoholic beverages?

 

Are students aware of the existing services to help them (transportation options, first aid, etc.)? Are there barriers to using them?

Drinking at Foxfield vs Other Times

• Average BAC’s during Sunday through Wednesday are statistically less then all other days measured

• Of the remaining days ANOVA analysis shows that Thursday is the only day that has BAC’s that are statistically unequivelent to Foxfield

• Individual 95% CIs For Mean Based on Pooled StDev• Level +---------+---------+---------+---------• Thurs (------*------)• Fri (------*------)• Sat (------*------)• Football (------*------)• Halloween (------*------)• Foxfield (------*------)• +---------+---------+---------+---------• 0.060 0.080 0.100 0.120

Negative Consequences of Alcohol Use on Others

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

caretaking role personalpropertydamaged

passenger in avehicle driven

by a drunkdriver

experiencedphysicalpushing,shoving,hitting

experienced averbal

argument

experienedunwantedsexual

advance

disrupted fromstudies

disrupted fromsleep

preventedfrom enjoying

races

Effect

Perc

en

t E

xp

eri

en

ced

22% had to serve as caretakers for their intoxicated friends. 3.6% experienced unwanted sexual advances5.4% experienced personal property damage10.9% experienced physical pushing, shoving, or hitting.

Papers based on this initial work

Guha, P.N., Bass, E. J., & Bruce, S. E. (2006). A survey to investigate student drinking norms at Foxfield. IEEE Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium. Charlottesville, VA, April 28, 2006.

Came back after graduating!

Included insights from SYS 3034

Guha, P.N., Bass, E. J., & Bruce, S. E. (2007). I drink, I get drunk, I fall down, no problem: An analysis of college binge drinking and related decision making behaviors. IEEE Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium. Charlottesville, VA, April 27, 2007.

5 students redesigned survey over spring break of 3rd year (motivated by SYS 3034)

One student analyzed data over summer 2007

4 person Capstone team in 2007-2008

4.25.08

18UVa Systems and Information

Engineering

Horses? There Are Horses at Foxfield?

An Analysis of College Student Hazardous Drinking and Related Decision Making Behaviors

University of Virginia

April 25, 2008

Matthew White, Marin Odioso, Monica Weaver, Michael Purvis,

Ellen Bass, and Susan Bruce

Funded in part by the Office of Health Promotion

IEEE Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium. Charlottesville, VA, April 25, 2008.

Did You See a Horse at Foxfield? A Social Norms Approach for Targeting

the Negative Consequences of Hazardous Drinking

Marin Odioso, Michael Purvis, Monica Weaver, Matthew White, Ellen J. Bass, and Susan E. Bruce

Systems and Information EngineeringUniversity of Virginia

April 25, 2008

Funded by Office of Health Promotion, Z Society, The Network,UVA Parents Program, and Foxfield Racing Association

Approach• Five-step social influence model (Haines, 1996)

1. Collect baseline data

2. Develop messages that highlight lower-risk drinking norms and healthy intervention norms

3. Ensure credibility of the message source

4. Deliver the message to the target population

5. Support message retention within the population

• This project is the first time this model is used to target a specific event at UVA. Little published data elsewhere.

Campaign Objectives• Decrease number of students experiencing black outs

during Foxfield by 50% from 9% to 4.5%. • Decrease drinking before Foxfield by 20% from 48.8%

to 39.1%• Decrease the gap between the perceived and actual

average number of drinks consumed at Foxfield by 50% from 4 a drink difference to only 2 drinks.

• Decrease impaired driving by 50% from 1.2% to 0.6%.• Increase student awareness of the First Aid Tent location

from 50.6% to 70%. • Increase participation in the Savvy Fox sober driver

program by 10% from 525 to 577 people.

Step 3: Ensure credibility of the message source:

focus groups and stakeholder feedback

Step 2: Develop messages that highlight lower-risk drinking norms and healthy intervention norms

Step 4: Deliver messagesto target population:

posters, cups, and newspaper ads

Flyers, Posters, Ads, Cups, …

Curriculum Infusion• SYS 3034: continue to create and

evaluate cases– Learning Assessment grant

I learned something new about [alcohol or drinking] [distracted driving ]

Curriculum Infusion• SYS 3034 continue to create and evaluate

cases– Learning Assessment grant

I have changed my [drinking] [driving] behavior because of things I learned from doing the case

Curriculum Infusion

• Students continue to volunteer for course credit to continue the work

• Planning an interdisciplinary capstone– ADAPT (Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Team)

• Working to engage faculty in other systems courses

• And disciplines

Students seeing the campaign elements reported consuming fewer drinks than those who did not see the specific elements:

Stay hydrated poster (1.1 fewer drinks; t2,445=2.31, p=.021);

Savvy Fox program poster (1 fewer drink; t2,445=2.066, p=.039);

Signs of alcohol poisoning poster (0.9 fewer drinks; t2,445=1.68, p=.093);

Free transportation home poster (0.9 fewer drinks; t2,445=1.89, p=.060);

First aid tent location poster (0.8 fewer drinks; t2,445=1.74, p=.082);

Tangible impact on society

Moving forward…

• Create a culture of integrating health behavior topics into science and engineering courses

• Develop materials to facilitate the integration

• Encourage other faculty to try similar approaches