Alcohol Abstinence or Harm-Reduction? Parental Messages for College-Bound Light Drinkers

Parental communications about alcohol can have a significant impact on college students’ alcohol use; however, it is unclear what types of communication may be most beneficial for reducing alcohol risk, particularly among students who have already initiated alcohol use. The present research examines differences in alcohol use and employment of drinking protective behavioral strategies between pre-college matriculation high school seniors receiving predominantly abstinence parent messaging and students primarily receiving harm-reduction parent messaging. Students who identified as light drinkers were recruited during their last month in high school and completed an online assessment of alcohol use and parent alcohol communication. Analyses revealed that, in comparison to light drinkers who primarily received harm-reduction messaging from parents, light drinkers who received more abstinence messaging reported less frequent alcohol use, lower peak alcohol consumption, and greater use of protective drinking strategies aimed at changing the way they drank and avoiding serious hazards associated with drinking. Findings from this study underscore the utility of messages related to abstinence even for parents aware that their children have had previous experiences with alcohol and highlights the need for longitudinal research assessing additional mechanisms associated with message efficacy among light, moderate and heavy drinking students transitioning to college

Heavy episodic drinking is associated with poorer bone health in adolescent and young adult women

Objective: Osteoporosis is a costly bone disease characterized by low bone mineral density (BMD) that primarily affects postmenopausal women. One factor that may lead to osteoporosis is a failure to reach peak bone mass (PBM) in early adulthood. In older adults and animal models, heavy episodic drinking (HED) has been found to predict failure to reach PBM. However, this relationship has yet to be investigated in adolescent human females. Method: Female college students (N = 87; 60% White) reported age at menarche, hormonal contraceptive use, physical activity, smoking habits, and HED history via an online survey and then received a dual energy x-ray absorptiometry bone scan to assess both lean body mass and BMD at the lumbar spine. Results: Frequent HED (having four or more drinks within 2 hours on 115 or more occasions since the start of high school, which is approxi mately equal to 1.6 episodes per month over this period) was associated with decreased vertebral BMD even when variables most commonly associated with bone health (lean body mass, physical activity, age at menarche, smoking, and oral contraception use) were controlled for. However, early HED initiation (beginning HED at age 15 years or younger) was not significantly related to BMD. Conclusions: This is the first study to assess the impacts of early HED initiation and frequent HED during adolescence on the bone health of young women. Results suggest frequency of HED before reaching PBM, but not age at initiation, may be negatively related to skeletal health during young adulthood. These findings encourage research into the association between HED and BMD in late adolescence

Trilingual conversations: a window into multicompetence

A recurrent theme in the literature on trilingual language use is the question of whether there is a specific “trilingual competence.” In this paper we consider this question in the light of codeswitching patterns in two dyadic trilingual conversations between a mother and daughter conducted in (Lebanese) Arabic, French, and English. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of codeswitching in both conversants shows that, despite the fact that both subjects are fluent in all three languages, uses of switching are significantly different for mother and daughter across a number of features, including relative frequency of different switch types, and the incidence of hybrid constructions involving items from two or more languages. The subjects appear to display qualitatively distinct profiles of competence in the trilingual mode. This in turn leads to the conclusion that the facts of trilingual language use are best characterized in terms of “multicompetence” (Cook, 1991). The paper concludes with some further reflections on the uniqueness of trilingual language use (an “old chestnut” in trilingualism research, cf. Klein, 1995)

PNF 2.0? Initial evidence that gamification can increase the efficacy of brief, web-based personalized normative feedback alcohol interventions

Gamified interventions exploit the motivational characteristics of a game in order to provide prevention information and promote behavior change. Despite the modest effect sizes observed in increasingly popular web-based personalized normative feedback (PNF) alcohol interventions for college students, previous research has yet to consider how gamification might be used to enhance efficacy. This study examines whether a novel, gamified PNF intervention format, which includes a point-based reward system, the element of chance, and personal icons to visually represent users, is more effective in reducing short-term alcohol use than the standard web-based style of PNF currently used on college campuses. Two-hundred and thirty-seven college students were randomly assigned to receive either a standard brief, web-based PNF alcohol intervention or the same alcohol intervention components delivered within a Facebook-connected social game called CampusGANDR (Gamified Alcohol Norm Discovery and Readjustment). In both study conditions participants answered identical questions about their perceptions of peer drinking norms and own drinking and then received the same PNF slides. Two weeks following PNF delivery, participants again reported their perceptions of peers\u27 alcohol use and own drinking. Students in the CampusGANDR condition reported significantly reduced peer drinking norms and alcohol use at the two-week follow-up relative to students who received identical PNF delivered by standard online survey. Further, a mediation model demonstrated that this effect was driven by larger reductions in perceived drinking norms among participants assigned to receive CampusGANDR, relative to control. As web-based PNF is becoming an increasingly universal prevention strategy, findings from this study suggest gamification may represent one method by which intervention efficacy could be substantially improved. The potential methodological and economic benefits associated with gamified PNF interventions are emphasized and directions for future research are discussed

A Review of Standardized Testing Practices and Perceptions in Maine

The Maine Legislature requested the Maine Education Policy Research Institute (MEPRI) to conduct an assessment of standardized testing in Maine schools to understand the amount, cost, and usefulness of it. This report summarizes the resulting effort, which included a literature scan, document analysis, and surveys of two groups of school practitioners (testing administrators and teachers) to analyze the amount of time Maine students spend on testing, the types of tests administered, and whether the results are perceived as useful for school practitioners. The scope of the study did not include viewpoints from policymakers who use test results for accountability purposes, such as superintendents, boards of education, or the Maine Department of Education. [This report was co-published with the Maine Education Policy Research Institute in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine at Orono.

Trajectories of Alcohol Use and Consequences in College Women with and without Depressed Mood

College students with depressed mood face heightened risk for experiencing drinking-related negative consequences. However, few studies have examined prospective patterns of alcohol consequences among depressed students. In the present investigation, we assessed how first-year college women’s trajectories of heavy episodic drinking (HED) and alcohol consequences differed as a function of depressed mood at college entry. Participants were 233 heavy drinking incoming first-year college females (61% White) at a mid-sized west coast university. Participants completed an online baseline survey, attended a single brief group intervention session, and completed 1- and 6-month post-intervention follow-up surveys. Depressed mood, alcohol consumption, and alcohol consequences were assessed at each time point. We employed latent growth curve analyses. Females with depressed mood, versus without depressed mood, experienced greater levels of alcohol consequences overall, particularly during transitions to college. However, contrary to hypotheses, participants with depressed mood (vs. without) exhibited significantly steeper declining trends in consequences, controlling for treatment condition, age, race, and ethnicity, and despite stable drinking levels, depressed mood, and use of protective behaviors over time. Potential explanations and suggestions for future research are discussed

Ethnicity Specific Norms and Alcohol Consumption Among Hispanic/Latino/a and Caucasian Students

Previous research has shown that social norms are among the strongest predictors of college student drinking and that normative misperceptions of more similar groups’ drinking behavior may be more influential on individual drinking than those groups perceived to be more different. However, limited research has explored the moderating role of ethnicity in this context. The current study examined the differential impact that Hispanic/Latino/a and Caucasian students’ normative perceptions of both typical and same-ethnicity college students’ drinking behavior had on their own drinking. Participants (N = 5,369 students; 60.4% female; 81.4% Caucasian; mean age 19.9 years) from two colleges completed web-based surveys assessing their alcohol consumption, and their perceptions of the drinking behaviors of both the typical college student and the typical same-ethnicity college student at their campus. Results demonstrated that perceived norms were significantly associated with likelihood of drinking regardless of race or ethnicity specificity, but that Hispanics/Latinos/as typically had weaker relationships between ethnicity-specific norms and drinking than general student norms and drinking. The opposite was true for Caucasians such that the relationship between same-ethnicity norms and drinking was stronger than the relationship between general student norms and drinking. Further, Hispanic/Latino/a students with high perceived norms were less likely to have consumed any alcohol than Caucasians with similar normative beliefs. Further, a campus site interaction suggests that the size of the minority population on campus relative to other students may influence the relationship between norms and drinking. Implications and targets for future investigation are discussed

De problematiek van de kasgrondteelten: Mogelijke oplossingen aangedragen door ondernemers met substraatbedden in het bijzonder

De kasgrond glastuinbouw ziet zich geconfronteerd met stijgende kosten en een afname van de hoeveelheid toegelaten gewasbeschermingsmiddelen. Het middelenpakket tegen schadelijke bodemschimmels en aaltjes wordt mogelijk verkleind (Spruit e.a. 2008). Op dit moment is grondstomen nog een optie, maar door de sterk toenemende energie- en arbeidskosten wordt grondstomen steeds duurder. In voorgaande gesprekken met ondernemers en betrokkenen blijkt dat een teeltsysteem dat relatief goedkoop, en gemakkelijk in de praktijk is in te passen, de voorkeur heeft. Doelstelling van dit project is daarom het in kaart brengen van problemen met mogelijke oplossingen ten aanzien van bodemproblematiek in kasgrondteelten