Analyses of Health Informatics Databases for Interventions Related to Negative Outcomes

Substantial evidence shows that alcohol use is significantly associated with negative outcomes such as legal, social, and health problems. Alcohol-related problems are most often found in young males and prevalent on campuses as well. Negative outcomes not only affect individuals but also the communities surrounding them. A better understanding of relationships between alcohol-related problems and alcohol use is critical and prerequisite to developing and implementing effective ways to reduce problems.;This dissertation is composed of two separate pieces of research. The common theme of this dissertation is to shed light on relationships between alcohol use and negative outcomes among adolescents in different settings such as colleges and in a large metropolitan area, the City of Buffalo, NY. The first research piece identifies the relationship between on-campus alcohol-related problems with policy, prevention, and staffing/resources efforts pertaining to alcohol consumption in colleges or universities by using multinomial logistic regression and correspondence analysis. The second research piece uses structural equation modeling to test the integrated theory, a combination of availability and social learning theory, in order to examine the relationships between alcohol use and delinquency with physical and social availability among young males in a metropolitan area. The results from the first research piece demonstrate that permitting alcohol to be consumed on campus plays a very important role in affecting undesirable outcomes and that a focus period of time for violence/alcohol education and prevention efforts can be among effective solutions in the prevention and education to decrease health problems, sexual problems, and violence pertaining to alcohol consumption. The findings from the second research piece show that social availability affects alcohol use more than physical availability. Social availability, which is composed of social norm, parental supervision, and social context of drinking in groups, is a very important factor to implement effective prevention and intervention of youth drinking.