The collaborative was created in May to allow member institutions to work together to combat high-risk drinking, according to Kim.
The conference, which studied the "individual drinker," marked the first of three planned sessions over the next 18 months, according to Kim. The next meeting, which will focus on assessing the context in which drinking takes place, is scheduled for Jan. 9-11, 2012. The final July 9-11, 2012 meeting will examine sustainable structural programs that institutions can use to combat binge drinking, Kim said.
"This is the first time in history that we know of colleges and universities being brought together to share data, insights and ideas on binge drinking," Kim said.
Prior to the initiative, the College lacked experts on campus to consult on the issue of binge drinking, and had no streamlined access to the expertise of other institutions dealing with the same problem, Kim said.
"I called [university] presidents and looked at literature," Kim said. "There was no structured way for us to learn from the experience of others."
While 13 other institutions initially joined the initiative, an additional 18 chose to participate after its creation was announced on May 2, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism attended the session to observe, Kim said.
Over 200 participants, including deans of student affairs and vice presidents of member institutions, did "pre-work" for the session by assessing the context and current efforts made to combat drinking at their schools and by creating posters that were placed around the conference room, according to Kim.
"So many [participants] said, We thought we knew what to do, but looking at the poster boards, ideas from this school and that school, we want to rethink our strategy,'" Kim said.
Last week's session also introduced the collaborative's methodology, which Kim compared to the "Toyota production system model of quality improvement," which measures the outcomes of initiatives using a small cycle of goal-setting followed by critiquing the changes over a period of several weeks, Kim said.
Though a learning collaborative model has never been applied to problems of high-risk drinking at educational institutions, the system is widely used to examine public health issues, according to Kim. He said he has participated in learning initiatives in Peru and Rwanda, which focused on approaches to the public health problems presented by HIV and tuberculosis.
The establishment of the high-risk drinking collaborative was originally suggested by Presidential Fellow William Schpero '10, according to Kim.
"[New York University] ran a collaborative using similar methodology for depression among college students," Schpero said.
Schpero is a former member of The Dartmouth Senior Staff.
Tricia Lanter, co-director of the collaborative for the College, said that the search for experts in the field of alcohol abuse and high-risk drinking began eight months ago.
"We identified 12 people who really seemed to be the keepers of the evidence for this issue," she said. "From that group, we identified a set of six core experts, which we call the core faculty."
Kim said he expects that the collaborative will inspire future initiatives against high-risk drinking, which kills over 2,000 college students per year.
"Our hope is that if this approach works, future efforts will be sponsored by and supported by federal agencies," Kim said.
In addition to eventually impacting federal policies, this collaborative may alter the way colleges enact policy, Lanter said.
"I think this is going to change the way colleges look at health problems," she said. "I also think it has the potential to impact how colleges address other problems by using the improvement methodology, which is not just used in health care."
The collaborative's goals are strictly limited to improving campus safety and are not aimed at making changes on a policy or government level, according to Lanter.
Michael Fleming, who leads the collaborative's efforts at Northwestern University and attended the meeting, said approximately 150 Northwestern students go to the emergency room for alcohol-related incidents each year and about 400 students receive conduct citations.
"We'd like these numbers to be lower," Fleming said. "I think there's a perception on campus that Northwestern is not always a safe place, that students drink too much and put themselves at risk."
Working with other schools is crucial for effecting change, Fleming said, highlighting the lack of results seen by current policies.
"Even though we're putting resources and programs in place, it's not as effective as they'd like that to be," he said. "We'd like to learn what other campuses are doing that seems to work, and we'd like to implement that at Northwestern."
The collaborative's effort may also help raise awareness of alcohol abuse on a larger scale, Fleming said.
"We'd like to call more attention to the campus among groups that are less involved than they could be, like parents, alumni, faculty [and] student leaders," he said.
During the collaborative's first meeting, representatives from the participating schools discussed a tactic called "PDSA" plan, do, study, aim that will be the guideline used to effect future change, according to Fleming.
Participants discussed policies that may improve student behavior, including decreasing the length of time between receiving a citation and attending alcohol counseling, he said.
"Right now, it takes two to three weeks," Fleming said. "We'd like to get it down to a week. The closer you are to the incident, the more likely the student is going to change and do things differently."
Fleming said Northwestern also plans to institute health screenings, create a new counseling program and start notifying parents when incidents occur.
"Right now, if the student gets into trouble, it's the student's choice whether they tell their parents or not," Fleming said.
Northwestern's goal is to reduce student binge-drinking rates to "at least half" the current rate, Fleming said.
"Nothing's ever worked," he said. "This is the first thing I've ever seen that can really make a dent."
