4th Year 5K

2010 4th Year 5K Run/Walk Final Report
The nineteenth annual 4th Year 5K Run/Walk was a success due in large part to the continuing support of the Parents Committee. The grant enabled the Peer Health Educators to reach the UVA student body with its promotion of alcohol awareness and healthy alternatives to drinking. This report details the purpose, goals, participants, activities, and results of the grant.

General Purpose
The 4th Year 5K Run/Walk is a UVA tradition intended to raise awareness of actual alcohol usage on Grounds (rather than perceived use), discourage the unsafe behaviors associated with high-risk drinking, provide a healthy alternative to the dangerous practice of attempting the “4th Year 5th,” and raise money for The Leslie Baltz Foundation. The 4th Year 5K Run/Walk is a keystone event for Substance Abuse Awareness Week, providing students with a visible way to support low-risk drinking and Peer Health Educators with a venue through which to educate UVA students about drinking behaviors and resources available to them on Grounds. The event promotes healthy lifestyle choices and provides educational tools such as Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) cards and other literature during promotion and registration to encourage students to make informed choices and promote low-risk drinking.

Participants
The 19th Annual 4th Year 5K Run/Walk registered 315 participants from the UVA student body and Charlottesville community. UVA fourth years in particular showed their support for this University tradition, making up over 73% of race participants with 230 runners on the morning of the last home football game. In addition, hundreds more students were reached through 4th Year 5K promotional efforts, bringing the message of healthy college behaviors and low-risk drinking to the greater student body.

Activities
The bulk of the grant each year pays for t-shirts which are given to participants upon registration. Because the shirts are distributed throughout the registration period, and not simply on race day, they are a critical part of race advertisement. Additionally, the t-shirts serve as a means to continue awareness after race day, giving the message of the 4th Year 5K a year-long presence around Grounds. We believe that the t-shirts are integral for the race, for the high-risk time around the last home football game of the season, as well as for our year-long campaign of promoting normative messages about low-risk drinking on Grounds.

Additional advertising campaigns to increase awareness and participation in the race included painting Beta Bridge, distributing handbills and fliers around grounds, and sending email notifications to student groups and CIO’s. We also used grant money to advertise the three days before the race in the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, which according to independent surveys is read by 20,000 people – including over 80% of UVA’s student body. These race promotion activities allow the message of low-risk drinking to reach a larger percentage of the UVA students and contribute to a student-wide understanding of actual UVA health behaviors surrounding alcohol.

During the two weeks of on-grounds registration tabling prior to the 4th Year 5K, registrants were given race packets which contained information about low-risk drinking behaviors of students on Grounds and student support resources. Fourth year students were also encouraged at the registration tables to sign a pledge to not participate in the “4th Year 5th” and were given sunglasses and cups as tokens of appreciation and support, which was a collaborative project with the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Team (ADAPT).

Race day was not simply a 5K, but a peer-led promotional event for low-risk drinking among students. Over 50 student volunteers came out to support participants and celebrate healthy behaviors, delivering the message of the 4th Year 5K through posters, speeches, and educational BAC cards.

Results
The tradition of the 5K as a healthy alternative to high-risk drinking behaviors was further celebrated during the half-time show at the UVA vs. Maryland football game, where fourth year winners were announced and congratulated by President Teresa Sullivan down on the field. Importantly, Student Health’s tracking of ER visits surrounding the last home football game reported that the ER saw no serious cases due to the “4th Year 5th” attempts this year, indicating that the message of low-risk drinking behaviors is reaching and positively influencing students.
Without the generous support of the Parents Committee, the Peer Health Educators would be unable to present the 4th Year 5K Run/Walk which provides UVA students with a healthy alternative to the dangerous high-risk drinking behaviors surrounding the last home football game and furnishes the student body with the educational tools and resources to practice low-risk drinking behaviors and empowers them to make healthy lifestyle choices.