Effectively addressing substance use requires a coordinated approach across the university and its academic and administrative units that views mental and behavioral health as the foundation for student success. College is one of the few times in a person’s life where a single integrated setting encompasses all primary activities, both career-related and social, as well as services related to health, safety, and well-being. This represents a tremendous opportunity to address health and wellness among a segment of the population entering a high-risk developmental phase. Further, by nature of their teaching and research missions, colleges represent an ideal forum from which to develop best-practices for addressing health and wellness. Since many universities possess on their campuses researchers with expertise in relevant areas of study, it is striking that there has been so little systematic research that integrates basic science and intervention research into a unified university approach. There is a need to develop and evaluate programs to improve prevention, identification, and treatment of substance use and mental health problems on college campuses and to translate these findings into policy and practice (Hunt and Eisenerg, 2010).
