The Impact of Individual's Ecological Factors on the Dynamics of Alcohol Drinking among Arizona State University Students: An Application of the Survey Data-driven Agent-based

10/31/2020
by   Asma Azizi, et al.
0

College-aged students are one of the most vulnerable populations to high-risk alcohol drinking behaviors that could cause them consequences such as injury or sexual assault. An important factor that may influence college students' decision on alcohol drinking behavior is socializing at certain contexts across university environment. The present study aims to identify and better understand ecological conditions driving the dynamics of distribution of alcohol use among college-aged students. To this end, a pilot study is conducted to evaluate students' movement patterns to different contexts across the Arizona State University (ASU) campus, and to use its results to develop an agent-based simulation model designed for examining the role of environmental factors on development and maintenance of alcohol drinking behavior by a representative sample of ASU students. The proposed model that resembles an approximate reaction-diffusion model accounts for movement of agents to various contexts (i.e. diffusion) and alcohol drinking influences within those contexts (i.e., reaction) via a SIR-type model. Of the four most visited contexts at ASU Tempe campus – Library, Memorial Union, Fitness Center, and Dorm – the context with the highest visiting probability, Memorial Union, is the most influential and most sensitive context (around 16 times higher impact of alcohol related influences than the other contexts) on spreading alcohol drinking behavior. Our findings highlight the crucial role of socialization at local environments on the dynamics of students' alcohol use as well as on the long-term prediction of the college drinking prevalence.

READ FULL TEXT
research
10/26/2021

The Role of the Scrum Master in an Industry based University Course

Background: Scrum is the most commonly used agile software development m...
research
08/31/2021

Students' Information Privacy Concerns in Learning Analytics: Towards a Model Development

The widespread interest in learning analytics (LA) is associated with in...
research
12/04/2020

The Impact of a STEM-based Entrepreneurship Program on the Entrepreneurial Intention of Secondary School Female Students

Despite dedicated effort and research in the last two decades, the entre...
research
05/03/2019

Effect of E-cigarette Use and Social Network on Smoking Behavior Change: An agent-based model of E-cigarette and Cigarette Interaction

Despite a general reduction in smoking in many areas of the developed wo...
research
10/26/2022

Simulation-based Modelling of Growth and Pollination of Greenhouse Strawberry

The cultivated strawberry Fragaria ananassa Duch. is widely planted in g...

Please sign up or login with your details

Forgot password? Click here to reset