Effects of a Preventive Alcohol Education Program after Three Years

Abstract

A three-year evaluation of Nebraska students (N = 130) was conducted to gauge the long-term influence of an initial preventive alcohol education intervention. The initial intervention was developed around the inoculation model of McGuire which proposes that individuals can be inoculated against persuasive verbal appeals and thus resist specific pressures. Students in the initial program were assessed and found to be highly susceptible to peer pressure to misuse alcohol. Subjects were followed through their junior year in high school and assessed on the following self-report alcohol-related behaviors: frequency of riding with drinking drivers; frequency of drinking and, frequency of drinking to excess. Cognitive areas assessed included items assessing the concept of tolerance to alcohol. Results suggest that after three years frequency of risky alcohol-related behavior between experimental and control students was not significantly different. Assessments of cognitive items revealed no statistically significant differences between experimental and control students. When viewed in context with prior evaluations of these subjects at two-weeks and six-months time, the findings are disappointing yet informative. The claim that specific “educational inoculation” strategies play a long-term role in delaying the initiation of risky health behavior in adolescents is discussed. The judicious integration of periodic, sequential, and meaningful booster components into school-based environments is recommended as a potential way to achieve a more lasting effect in preventive inoculation efforts.