Correcting Perceptions: Mission and Method

The Well Staff Spring 2010

Mission

Our mission is to learn the truth about student health behaviors and to share what we learn in order to correct misperceptions and improve college students' health.

Correcting Perceptions

At VCU and across the country, year after year, survey research shows that most college students drink less alcohol than people think. In each study, a majority of college students reported that they drink 0–4 drinks each time they socialized in the two weeks immediately before the study.

Contrary to common misperceptions that are often reinforced by the media, most college students party safely. Thanks to research, we know most students party safely by choice, planning and the use of strategies.

Students are healthier than you think in other behaviors as well — most don’t smoke cigarettes, most never do illegal drugs, most have 0–1 sex partners per year, and the list goes on.

Method

We collect information and data from students each spring and then create messages to publicize the research findings. For the messages, we use a variety of media, most often posters, but also radio programs, campus newspaper articles and ads, this Web site, and special events. Monthly issues of our popular Stall Seat Journal, filled with health information, are displayed in more than 900 bathrooms on campus.

Because we know the findings seem too good to be true, we back up our published messages with small group communications. These sessions use “clicker” technology (aka "immediate audience response") and target “Brief Live Interactive Normative Groups” — BLINGs. The programs demonstrate firsthand to participants that VCU students really do practice healthier lifestyles than what our perceptions tell us. At last count, about one-third of VCU's 30,000-plus students recalled participating in a BLING session.

Funders

Since 2002, the work at this site has been funded not only by VCU but by many grant sources as well. Over the years funders have included the US Department of Education Model Program Grant (2005 and 2008), the NCAA CHOICES Grant Program, and the Virginia Department of Health TUCP Program, and of course, the place that first inspired us to look for “hidden goodness” — the National Social Norms Institute (www.socialnorms.org).

• More on the research.
• See the posters.
• More about clickers and BLING sessions.