Fern Walter Goodhart

Acquaintance Rape on Campus: A Literature Review.

(1992). Acquaintance Rape on Campus: A Literature Review. Journal of American College Health: Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 157-165.

A Case Against "Binge" as the Term of Choice: Convincing College Students to Personalize Messages about Dangerous Drinking

The most recent literature on the prevention of problematic drinking on the college campus includes a growing controversy about approaches to the reduction of college drinking. On the one hand, there is an increasing body of literature reporting success in driving down drinking on college campuses using social norms-based approaches (Haines, 1996; Jeffrey & Negro, 1996; Lederman, Stewart, Barr, Powell, Goodhart, & Laitman, 2000; Perkins & Wechsler, 1996). Advocates of social norms-based approaches claim that students operate under the misperception that everyone on campus drinks excessively (Butler, 1993; Burns, Ballou & Lederman, 1991; Jeffrey & Negro, 1996). Social norms strategies target these misperceptions by providing students with actual norms, reporting that this approach both changes perceptions and drives down actual drinking. On the other hand, some well established researchers report finding increased

Applying Communication Theories to Prevent Dangerous Drinking among College Students: The RU SURE Campaign

This article describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a dangerous drinking prevention campaign on a large university campus. Members of the target audience, first‐year students, are particularly susceptible to misperceptions of drinking norms on campus given their previous experiences and environmental messages communicated to them through the media. Thus, this campaign was designed using the Socially Situated Experiential Learning (SSEL) Model (Lederman & Stewart, 1999) that builds on a framework of interpersonal communication theories, social norms theory, and experiential learning theory. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of a health communication campaign that combines both a traditional media campaign with experiential learning activities conducted by upper‐level students who serve as disseminators of campaign messages as well as role models for the target audience.

Binge drinking: Not the word of choice

Abstract Educators and researchers strive to use terms that reflect a replicable measure of behavior. A term commonly used to describe drinking of a problematic nature is binge drinking. Binge drinking defines behavior by a number of drinks of an alcoholic beverage consumed in a space of time. The authors argue that the term does not describe drinking behavior that students believe is problematic. They claim that students define problem drinking not in terms of quantity, but rather by the outcome (and occasionally by frequency), and attribute different negative connotations to the term binge. They suggest using a term that has shared meaning with students, such as dangerous drinking, to describe the drinking behavior that results in undesirable or unintended consequences.

Teaching Advocacy to Public Health Students: The New Jersey Experience

Increasingly, the profession of health education expects its practitioners to effectively advocate for both health education and the promotion of healthy practices, programs, and policies. This raises the question, “Are we preparing health educators for this responsibility?” This article briefly looks at the role of advocacy in health education practice; summarizes an assessment of how, if at all, health programs in New Jersey are teaching advocacy skills to their students; and reviews two public health advocacy courses as examples of how advocacy is taught in practice.

Evaluating HIV/AIDS Education in the University Setting

Surveys to determine learning and behavioral changes that result from education about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) should be constructed to account for high levels of background knowledge and knowledge of safer sex practices among college students. This article evaluates the learning and behavioral changes of students enrolled in an HIV/AIDS education course offered by the Department of Biological Sciences at Rutgers University as part of a university-wide HIV/AIDS education program. Responses of students in the HIV/AIDS class were compared with those of students enrolled in other biology classes, using paired and unpaired t tests and multivariate discriminant analysis. Participants revealed they had significant knowledge about HIV/AIDS as a result of the HIV/AIDS class, but students campus-wide had a far higher level of general knowledge about HIV/AIDS than the authors expected. In addition, many students already were practicing behaviors that would reduce their risk of HIV infection. Because students were so knowledgeable about HIV and claimed they practiced safer sex, it was difficult to demonstrate significant changes in behavior as a result of the classroom experience.

Book and Media Review

Loue and coauthors introduce this book by informing us that “health professionals are often confronted with situations that demand change,” including for example, the need for accessing adequate health care, for a specific prevention program, or for legislative understanding of the underlying causes of health conditions. They then suggest, “Advocacy may be required to move beyond the status quo” (p. v). The text provides a foundation for initiation of advocacy efforts and the evaluation of their success, and includes specific strategies, formation and development of coalitions, and advocacy efforts in legislatures, courts, and media (p. v). I prepared to settle back in my chair and delve into a book on advocacy. While I applaud the authors’ attempt to link theory with practice, I labored through the text. The text is dense with references, descriptions, and definitions and uses too many brief case studies/descriptions to amplify its theoretical statements. The text might be stronger if fewer case studies were used, and those selected were applied across more than one advocacy strategy when appropriate. This book seems to be written for the formal study of the subject of advocacy, and perhaps may be best used by college health faculty and students in a course. Community Health Advocacy tries to do too much. In its framework for advocacy (two chapters), it becomes a community health primer, from describing communities by using a range of social science perspectives to reviewing how to assess community needs and frame an issue, which is more appropriate for a community health text than one on advocacy. The authors go on to didactically describe community organization from different activists’ points of view, followed again by examples and discussion questions. Every chapter ends with two discussion questions, which require the reader to return to the text, mining its descriptions for practical answers (a useful exercise if you are so inclined). Subsequent chapters continue to summarize other authors’ work, by describing advocacy concepts theoretically and then using examples of different strategies to elucidate these points, such as grassroots activism and community organization, coalitions, the legislative and regulatory process, media advocacy, and advocacy evaluation and ethics. Advocacy clearly has a critical place in the practice of health promotion, being imbedded in the profession’s vision, responsibilities, strategies, and curricula. Having the confidence and skills to advocate for needed public health policy is expected for present and future health professionals. Existing books by Altman et al. (1994), Wallack et al. (1993), Themba (1999), and others offer practical advice, guidelines, and a clear framework for “doing advocacy.” Community Health Advocacy, unfortunately, doesn’t add much to the practitioner’s toolbox, as it offers no new research, theory, or practices of advocacy. Nor is it a practical text to strengthen confidence or inspire action on the part of the reader to advocate for public health policies and programs. Its strongest chapter might be chapter 8, “The Media,” where the authors seem to find their voice, and the material flows. Here they offer

Assessing student staff motivation and satisfaction to strengthen health education services

Abstract A student staff inquiry project in the department of health education at a large state university assessed the motivation and satisfaction of student staff and peer educators. The students who managed this Student Inquiry Project created the interview tool, collected and analyzed the data for themes, and developed follow-up recommendations. Through this student-driven qualitative process, several themes emerged, including the need for more department visibility, student opportunities, student identity, skill building, and appreciation. The department is using the recommendations to strengthen student connection, satisfaction, and training.