Expanding the uSafeUS Mobile App to Reduce Alcohol-Involved Sexual Assault on College Campuses

Over 75% of campus sexual assaults involve alcohol, yet existing campus alcohol and SA prevention efforts designed for universal delivery are often siloed and limited in their ability to provide students with in-the-moment assistance to reduce risk. Smartphone apps are an integral part of college student life and are increasingly used to engage students in real-time alcohol prevention; however, none have integrated alcohol and sexual assault prevention into a single cross-cutting tool. This study addresses this gap by expanding a promising campus sexual assault prevention and response app (uSafeUS®) to include evidence-based alcohol harm reduction tools and real-time messaging to support students' use of protective behavioral strategies (PBS) in the moments when they most need them. The uSafeUS app, currently in use on 24 US college campuses, utilizes sexual assault PBS (e.g., sharing current locations and an expected return home time with trusted peers) as the primary risk reduction mechanism for students to use in social contexts where alcohol is present, yet none of the existing features directly address alcohol consumption. This project will leverage the existing uSafeUS infrastructure and a proven user-centered development process to expand app features to include an interactive drink tracker and personalized feedback messaging to reduce alcohol consumption and increase PBS use (uSafeUS+).

Following app development, the investigators will conduct a 3-arm pilot randomized controlled trial (N = 90) using an intensive longitudinal design to test uSafeUS+, relative to active (uSafeUS) and assessment-only control groups. Long term, uSafeUS+ is expected to reduce drinking outcomes and SA risk at 3-month follow-up by increasing PBS use and decreasing the amount students drink on days when students use PBS app features. This study will establish the feasibility and acceptability of uSafeUS+ and our proposed event-level evaluation approach, which is innovative and necessary to examine both between-group differences in behavioral outcomes over time and within-person variability in app feature use, acceptability, and behavioral outcomes across app use days, relative to non-app use days.

Specifically, the investigators will examine: a) app evaluability and evaluation plan feasibility using enrollment, retention, compliance, and app use data; b) overall acceptability of the app and evaluation procedures, including event-level variability in app acceptability during a 1-month app exposure period; c) psychometric properties of evaluation instruments; and d) preliminary effect sizes of app impacts on drinking and PBS use at the event level (via weekend daily diaries; uSafeUS+ vs. uSafeUS), and SA risk outcomes over time (1- and 2-month follow up; uSafeUS+ vs. uSafeUS + assessment-only control).

Participants will complete a baseline survey, which will determine participant eligibility, randomly assign students to conditions, and assess prior drinking behaviors, protective behavior use, and sexual assault experiences. Students in the uSafeUS+ or uSafeUS groups will be trained in using their assigned app and the daily survey protocols, followed by a 1-month app exposure period with integrated weekend daily diary assessments of event-level app feature acceptability, use context (where they were, who they were with), and outcomes (e.g., daily drinking, protective behavior use). The investigators will also passively collect embedded metadata on daily app usage. All students, regardless of group assignment, will complete 1- and 2-month drinking and SA risk surveys.