# Extension and Online Adaptation of the FITSTART parent-based intervention to reduce drinking among first-year students

> **NIH NIH R34** · LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $134,906

## Abstract

Project Summary
The proposed project seeks to adapt, optimize, and extend our successful brief parent-based intervention
(PBI). While previous PBIs have focused solely on giving parents information about how to communicate with
teens, the FITSTART intervention was designed based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to motivate
parents to engage with the information and apply it to their communication with their teens. Delivered to groups
of parents during summer orientation sessions, FITSTART included a live social norms intervention to correct
perceptions about how often other parents communicate with their students, how approving other parents are
of underage drinking, and how often students will likely drink in college. Consistent with the TPB, we also
presented information designed to change parents' attitudes about college alcohol use. This novel approach
demonstrated robust short-term effects during students' first month on campus, reducing weekly drinks, the
likelihood that non-drinking students would initiate alcohol use, and the likelihood that those already drinking
would engage in heavy episodic drinking. However, the effects dissipated by the second semester and the live
small-group format limits the extent to which FITSTART can be easily disseminated to parents nationwide. The
current 3-year project will adapt FITSTART to create FITSTART+. We will employ technology we have
developed over the past two years informed by the literature on virtual co-presence—a phenomenon by which
persons inhabiting a shared online space can feel a sense of community—to create an online version of
FITSTART that maintains the benefits of the live program while increasing the reach and scope of the
intervention substantially. In Phase I we will employ Participatory Design Methods (PDM) to allow
approximately 680 parents to help design the intervention's interface and content themselves through focus
groups, surveys, and PDM exercises. Simultaneously we will work with a web designer and a New York Times
bestselling author to create and adjust the online intervention platform and content based on feedback from
parents. Then, in Phase II we will conduct a feasibility and efficacy trial of the final FITSTART+ program with a
sample of 600 parent-student dyads. After students complete a baseline survey during July prior to their arrival
on campus, parents will be randomized to FITSTART+ or a control program that corrects norms related to
general college health behaviors rather than alcohol use. Importantly, this will test feasibility, not just efficacy.
Thus, the program will be marketed to parents as it would be in a “real world” dissemination (i.e., parents will
be told the program is being offered by the university for free rather than being told it is part of a research
study). Students will complete follow-up surveys during the Fall and at the end of the Spring semester to
assess short- and long-term alcohol use and consequences. If pilot results are pro...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10003921
- **Project number:** 5R34AA026422-03
- **Recipient organization:** LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Joseph W. Labrie
- **Activity code:** R34 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $134,906
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-20 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10003921

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10003921, Extension and Online Adaptation of the FITSTART parent-based intervention to reduce drinking among first-year students (5R34AA026422-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-04 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10003921. Licensed CC0.

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