Evaluation of a brief harm reduction intervention to reduce celebratory drinking among college students

Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of a harm reduction e-card at increasing protective drinking behaviors and decreasing negative outcomes from consuming alcohol.Participants: Participants were college students who turned 21 years old between January 21 2016 and September 27 2017. A total of 1,064 students completed the posttest: 737 from the experimental group and 327 from the control group.Methods: This study is a randomized controlled trial evaluation. Three days prior to their birthdays, students were randomly selected to receive a harm reduction e-card (experimental group) or not (control group). Three days after their birthdays, all students were sent an electronic posttest survey to the student’s university email address.Results: Students who received the e-card intervention reported employing more protective behaviors than the individuals who did not receive the card. Conclusions: This evaluation concludes that a harm reduction e-card successfully increased the use of protective drinking strategies but did not impact negative outcomes.