UA Health Promotion and Preventive Services has lost its five-year, $1.8 million grant to study alcohol use, binge drinking rates and drinking intervention on campus.

The UA was the only university to receive a grant funded by the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, said Holly Avey, health educator for Health Promotion and Preventive Services.

"We are now scrambling to find replacement grants," Avey said. "We are also trying to re-categorize Health Promotion as community-based, rather than school-based, in order to reapply for a grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention."

Avey said the grant was canceled two weeks ago after funding Health Promotion for two years. Federal budget cuts forced the center to cancel all grants for projects concerning high-risk youth. Programs in schools are considered part of the high-risk youth category.

The 15-person department will most likely lose the equivalent of six or seven staff positions, Avey said.

"It is hard to tell who at this point," said Koreen Johannessen, director of Health Promotion and Preventive Services, about the possible reduction of staff. "Most of our evaluation staff and some of our program staff will probably be gone.

"Having the grant, we were able to do so much more for students, because we had the funding to test out strategies and really define what the issues are and aren't."

She said the Health Promotions program is exceptional compared to many other university programs, because it has a larger staff and teaches health promotion by focusing on the healthy behaviors of the majority.

"We're not pointing fingers and saying don't do this or don't do that, because we know most students know negative things don't always happen," Johannessen said. Instead of using scare tactics, the program tries to influence students into drinking moderately by showing them that most other students don't drink heavily.

The department will submit a phase-out report the first week of July, so "we can close down activity in an orderly fashion," Johannessen said.

"We don't want to lose any of the benefits we worked for by shutting the programs down without a plan."

Some programs will be taken over by other campus organizations. Student Programs take over "Break Away," the alternative spring break program Health Promotion created.

"None of the programs that work will be gone," Johannessen said. She said all remaining staff will help in all areas to keep those programs running.

Mini-grants from Health Promotion will also discontinue. A mini-grant is a grant of up to $1,000 given to clubs and organizations for sponsoring alcohol-free events.

Last year, Health Promotion gave $5,000 to campus organizations, Johannessen said.

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Wildcat Web Links: The Health Promotion and Preventitive Services site provides information about some of the services offered by the department.

http://www.health.arizona.edu/prom.html

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