Data quality in evaluation of an alcohol-related harm prevention program

The authors report the reliability and convergent validity in a sample of college students for 27 composite scales and two items covering alcohol use, cigarette smoking, marijuana use, and other drug use; beliefs relating to alcohol use; perceived norms for alcohol-related behavior; harm prevention skills; intentions to take prevention action; harm prevention action taken; risk taken; experienced harm; and other health-related behaviors and person characteristics. Data quality assessment strategies and missing data procedures were illustrated for large, multivariate, longitudinal data sets. Results indicate 23 of the 27 composite scales had at least acceptable reliability, and the remaining 4 composite scales had at least marginally acceptable reliability. At least moderate construct validity was demonstrated for 25 scales.