Why does research matter?

The Gunnison County Substance Abuse Prevention Project is an evidence-based effort. This means that the Project’s direction must be based on factual information and statistical data collected locally. This data provides the foundation for the Project’s decision making about its plans and activities. This page and the available links shown below provide:

• An overview of the Project’s data collection efforts

• Results and principle conclusions derived from those efforts

• Specific data obtained from each of the surveys conducted

• Information on national research, data, and trends on issues of alcohol and drug use

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How did we gather our data?

In the summer of 2006, the GCSAPP Community Coalition created the Assessment and Evaluation Task Force and gave it the responsibility of studying and initiating the data collection activities necessary to establish the empirical foundation for the Project’s strategic plan and implementation effort. The data collected by the Task Force would provide the comprehensive perspective required for the Project’s goal of building community infrastructure for the reduction and prevention of alcohol and drug abuse in Gunnison County communities. The primary focus for the 2007 project year would be underage drinking.

The Task Force established three essential goals for achieving its mission of support for the Coalition’s strategic plan:

1. to identify existing data on the issues of alcohol and drug use and evaluate the usefulness of these data,

2. to identify areas in which available data was not current, of value, or in which gaps existed, i.e., areas for which no data was available at all, and

3. to develop and implement data collection efforts to gather the statistics necessary to fill the identified gaps or to address the need for bringing the data to current status.

At the conclusion of the Task Force’s assessment activities, it had succeeded in achieving its three goals. These activities included the administration of five survey instruments designed to gather data from:

• school-age students

• community adults

• parents of school-aged children

• Western State College students

• Western State College faculty and staff

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What did we find out?

The results of the Task Force’s efforts and the data derived support numerous findings:

• There is agreement across the multiple data sets that there is a moderate to high level of tolerance for alcohol use in the Gunnison County communities, with a slightly lower level of tolerance for marijuana use.

• Alcohol use by underage youth is both significant and perceived as a problem in this community by both community adult and parent survey respondents.

• There is significant first use of alcohol by the age of sixteen reported by community youth.

• There is significant engagement in “binge” drinking reported by community youth.

• There is a significant belief that parents can have strong influence on the decisions their children make about alcohol and drug use.

• There is agreement among community adults, parents, and students that alcohol is readily accessible to underage youth in the community, with marijuana slightly less accessible.

• A significant shift in perception of accessibility occurs between sixth and seventh grades as reported by community youth.

• There is a strong belief that the community needs to be more aware of and involved in addressing the issues of alcohol and drug use and more importantly, that by working together the community can be successful in reducing drug use and abuse in the community.

• Although there was a reduction in percentages from 2004 indicating some positive change, regular alcohol and marijuana use by all students at Western State College remains at a significant level, with a high percentage of underage students also reporting regular use.

• Engagement in “binge” drinking by Western State College students likewise remains at a high level.

• An increased percentage of Western State College Students reported experiencing negative consequences as the result of alcohol or drug use.

• Western State College faculty and staff rate alcohol as important in the social life of its students.

• A significant percentage of Western State faculty and staff indicate that they are aware of students whose academic performance has been negatively affected by alcohol or drug use.
Complete Survey data and reports are available by contacting Jere Thomas.

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