Evaluating Cross-Cutting Prevention at the U.S. Air Force Academy

Sexual assault and alcohol misuse both persist at high rates among military populations. These behaviors interfere with readiness, unit cohesion, mission objectives, and personnel performance and retention. There are demonstrated associations between sexual assault and alcohol misuse for both perpetrators and victims of sexual assault. Therefore, combining efforts to prevent sexual assault and alcohol misuse is critical for more effective and efficient programming. Moreover, tailored prevention programming that addresses individual risks and experiences related to sexual assault and alcohol misuse is likely to be the most effective programming. Unfortunately, to date, no evidence-based cross-cutting interventions have been developed and evaluated for impacts on both sexual assault and alcohol misuse among military populations. Several challenges impede this effort. Sexual assault prevention and alcohol misuse prevention are typically managed in different organizations within military settings, including within Military Service Academies. Training settings face many competing demands for trainees' time and instructor capacity, and instructors' ability to provide both sexual assault-related and alcohol-related training varies widely. Despite the promise of tailored training, individualized programming also presents feasibility challenges in group education settings common to military training. In alignment with the Fiscal Years 2021-2025 Department of Defense (DoD) Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Research Agenda and DoD's desire to have cross-cutting prevention programs that reduce risk for multiple harmful behaviors, the long-term goal of the proposed work is to address these challenges and provide the military with flexible, engaging, tailored prevention programming that reduces sexual assault and alcohol misuse while minimizing burden on Service members and training settings. To that end, the basic objective of this study is to test the cross-cutting immediate and long-term outcomes of two programs, the Sexual Communication and Consent (SCC) sexual assault prevention program and the eCHECKUP TO GO alcohol misuse prevention program, delivered separately and in combination, with Cadets at the United States Air Force Academy. Anonymous Cadet self-report data will be collected before training (pre-test), immediately after training (post-test), 3 months after training (Fall semester follow-up), and 9 months after training (Spring semester follow-up).