University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)

The College Alcohol and Substance Education (CASE) program is a mandated intervention at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), for students who violate residence hall alcohol policies. CASE combines proven strategies into a five-week program. Participants meet once weekly in group sessions facilitated by a trained CASE counselor, who delivers the intervention using a psycho-educational approach. A two-year evaluation of CASE found the program to reduce significantly the number of drinks participants consumed in a week and the number of times participants drank to intoxication, while increasing participants’ use of harm reduction strategies. Evaluation data also pointed to the emergence of two distinct groups of participants: those whose high-risk drinking follows the trajectory typical of college students’ development as young adults, and those who have personal and family histories of alcohol dependence—combined with co-morbid mental health issues—that put them at severe risk for dangerous drinking. Given the emergence of this second group, UCSB is enhancing CASE. Enhancements include (1) an intake assessment to reliably identify severe-risk students, and (2) development and evaluation of an Enhanced CASE curriculum. UCSB is using a quasi-experimental design with administration of online pre- and post-surveys for CASE participants and nonparticipant control group students, as well as a delayed treatment condition in which students serve as their own controls. Client interviews will be used to further evaluate the effect of Enhanced CASE.