# Implementation Support for Prevention Program Delivery by College Peer  Educators

> **NIH NIH R01** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $538,729

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Several interventions for mental health problems are efficacious and effective, but few are routinely offered to
college students, who represent 59% of young adults. This is regrettable because college students are at high
risk for mental health problems (e.g., depression, substance abuse, eating disorders), and college counseling
centers lack sufficient clinicians to offer individual therapy to all afflicted students and are not well positioned to
deliver prevention programs. One solution for this service shortfall is to have peer educators deliver scripted
group-based prevention programs, which can more efficiently reduce the burden of mental illness than
individual therapy. Targeting college students is a cost-effective tactic for delivering prevention programs and
has vast potential reach because 85% of colleges have peer educator programs. Peer educators have
effectively delivered several prevention programs, sometimes producing larger effects than clinicians, as was
the case in a preliminary trial of a group-based prevention program with a particularly strong evidence-base.
Guided by Wandersman et al. (2012), we propose to evaluate 3 levels of implementation support (training,
technical assistance, and quality assurance/improvement) for the delivery of a prevention program. We will
randomize 45 colleges to: (1) a Training condition where experts provide an intensive discrete 2-day initial
train-the-trainer workshop that simultaneously trains peer educators to deliver the intervention and campus
supervisors to train and support future peer educators, plus the facilitator guide and facilitator support website;
(2) a Training + Technical Assistance condition, adding a ½ day implementation training to articulate goals,
needs, leadership structure, adoption options, recruitment strategies, and communication; or (3) a Training +
Technical Assistance + Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement condition adding 1 year of technical
assistance, coaching, and quality assurance to enhance implementation skills and sustainability. We will test
whether greater implementation support is associated with graded increases in fidelity and competence in
delivering the scripted prevention program (Aim 1), student attendance of the intervention and effectiveness of
the program on pre-to-post changes in outcomes compared to usual care data collected before implementation
(Aim 2), and reach and sustainability of the program (Aim 3). We will test whether Consolidated Framework for
Implementation Research (CFIR) indices of perceived intervention characteristics, outer and inner setting
factors, peer educator attributes, and process factors after the initial training correlate with fidelity, competence,
attendance, effectiveness, reach, and sustainability over the implementation period and test whether at the end
of the initial 1-year implementation period the 3 conditions differ on relevant CFIR indices and on the progress
and timing of implementation (Aim 4). ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10059262
- **Project number:** 5R01MH112743-05
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** ERIC M STICE
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $538,729
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-12-15 → 2022-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10059262

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10059262, Implementation Support for Prevention Program Delivery by College Peer  Educators (5R01MH112743-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10059262. Licensed CC0.

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