A social marketing media campaign, based on a normative social influence model and focused on normative messages regarding binge drinking, on a large, southwestern university campus has yielded positive preliminary results of an overall 29.2 percent decrease in binge drinking rates over a three-year period. The Core Alcohol and Drug Survey and the Health Enhancement Survey provided information on student knowledge, perceptions, and behaviors regarding alcohol and binge drinking. This study represents the first in-depth research on the impact of a media approach, based on a normative social influence model, to reduce binge drinking on a large university campus and has yielded promising initial results.

A qualitative study of five campus programs yields thirteen success factors that correlate with effective alcohol and other drug abuse prevention for students enrolled in higher education.

descriptors can be used to characterize the project: it is deveZopmentaz, focusing on developmental influences of schools and colleges, as girls and boys, women and men progress through them; it is consuztative, i.e., an indirect intervention with participants fulfilling roles as both 2nternaZ and externaZ consultants: it is collaborative, involving collaboration across developmental levels, personnel and institutions; it is a straining project, with a major focus on the creation of print and videotape materials to be used in training workshops designed to implement the model; and it is a change agent project with teachers, counselors, administrators, and at University of Manitoba Libraries on

Comprehensive prevention programs need a benchmark for success. Self‐assessment based on characteristics of successful programs provides a strategic planning method, evaluation tool, and the needed benchmark.