About the Campus Alcohol Policy Evaluation Tool
Our Mission
The Campus Alcohol Policy Evaluation Tool is a web application designed to empower post-secondary institutions in Canada to assess and enhance their alcohol policies. Our mission is to provide a comprehensive, user-friendly platform that facilitates evidence-based policy development, ultimately fostering safer and healthier campus environments.
Expertise and Impact
This tool was developed by the Substance Use and Health in Emerging Adulthood (SHEA) Lab at St Francis Xavier University (StFX) in partnership with members of the research team and funded by a SSHRC Connection Grant. This combined expertise ensures that the evaluation framework is robust, relevant, and aligned with best practices in public health and campus safety. We aim to make a significant impact across Canadian postsecondary institutions by promoting proactive policy evaluation and continuous improvement.
Key Features
- Comprehensive policy assessment framework
- Interactive dashboard for tracking progress
- Resource library with best practices and guidelines
- Secure and confidential data management
Background - Campus Alcohol Policy Project
This Campus Alcohol Policy Evaluation Tool is built off a successful Research Nova Scotia (RNS) 2020-21 New Health Investigator Grant conducted in partnership with 12 Atlantic Canadian universities. Known as the Campus Alcohol Policy Project (CAPP), this study was the first comprehensive assessment of campus alcohol policies in Canada. The goals of the RNS grant were to identify best practice campus alcohol policies, develop a coding framework to measure quality of campus alcohol policies, and to evaluate the quality of current alcohol policies across Atlantic Canadian campuses against best practice. Findings from this work revealed that postsecondary institutions across Atlantic Canada were collectively achieving less than half their potential score to reduce student alcohol use and related harm. Policy scores were further undermined by the fact that policies were difficult to find, distributed piecemeal across multiple documents, and outdated.
Building on these research findings, this tool allows us to extend the reach of the results and insights from the Campus Alcohol Policy Project to the 400+ postsecondary institutions across Canada. In turn, this should strengthen the capacity of Canadian postsecondary institutions to implement evidence-based alcohol policies on their campuses.
Kara Thompson
Dr. Kara Thompson (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada. She is a Research Chair in Substance Use Policy and Prevention and the Director of the Victor and Mona Dahdaleh Institute for Innovation in Health at StFX. Dr Thompson leads the Substance Use and Health in Emerging Adulthood (SHEA) Lab, where her research explores the social and commercial determinants of youth mental health and substance use.