Addressing Alcohol's Role in Sexual Assault in Campus Prevention Programming: A Qualitative Study

Background and Purpose: Sexual assault is an endemic public health problem on college campuses with estimates suggesting 20 to 25% of women are raped during their college career. Alcohol use is implicated in 50 to 70% of campus sexual assaults, leading to great attention to the intersections of sexual assault and alcohol use and abuse on college and university campuses. While campuses are urged to address alcohol’s role in sexual assault, there is limited guidance for prevention educators and administrators on how to actually do so. This qualitative study uses a critical feminist participatory action approach alongside the Campus Advocates and Prevention Professionals Association (CAPPA) to explore how campus-based sexual assault prevention educators address alcohol’s role in sexual assault on their campus. This study was funded by a Prevention Innovations Research Center Innovative Research Award.

Methods: We conducted 36 in-depth interviews by phone with a purposive sample of campus-based sexual assault prevention educators recruited through the CAPPA listserv. The research topic, research questions, and semi-structured interview guide were all developed iteratively with CAPPA members to probe participants as to current and ideal strategies for addressing alcohol’s role in sexual assault on college campuses. Participants were provided a $15 Amazon gift card for their participation. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and checked for accuracy. Two coders open-coded five interviews to identify initial themes and create an initial codebook. Then, the two coders independently coded all remaining interview transcripts using the Atlas.ti software program, discussed the results and resolved conflicts by consensus, and merged themes and subcodes. Throughout the process, the coders engaged in negative case analysis, constant comparison procedures, and memoing. A participatory informant feedback process was used throughout data analysis and results reporting.

Results: Participants described several key themes related to their work to address alcohol’s role in sexual assault on campus (a) factors through which alcohol affects sexual assault; (b) decision-making on current programmatic efforts; (c) vision of ideal programming; (d) challenges and barriers; (e) advice for new professionals; and (f) promising and innovative practices at other institutions. Participants described addressing alcohol’s role in sexual assault as complicated but guided by several common ethical, research-informed, and practical concerns. Participants frequently envisioned campuses that cultivated a social justice and primary prevention approach rather than a compliance-oriented culture. Common challenges included university administration and bureaucratic systems, policies and laws, current social norms, and a lack of research and available interventions or best practice models.

Conclusions and Implications: This research provides critical wisdom from campus-based prevention educators, a group whose voices are rarely amplified in conversations about addressing campus sexual assault. Campus-based prevention educators have a nuanced understanding of alcohol’s role in sexual assault, robust advice for new prevention educators, and clearly elucidated challenges and barriers to addressing alcohol’s role in sexual assault on college campuses. Campus-based prevention educator perspectives on current and ideal programming can be combined with the best available research to inform interventions to address alcohol’s role in sexual assault across the social ecology.