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Innate College Culture Promotes Student Alcohol Abuse

The Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (CAS) has just released the results of a landmark study that examined college drinking habits and the environments that influence some students to party excessively while others abstain.  The study included the personal habits of tens of thousands of college students themselves but also delved into the secondhand influence of students overindulging in alcohol during college years.

The 14-year study ran from 1992 to 2001 and included more than 50,000 students enrolled at 120 American colleges.  The study focused on binge drinking, a practice that is widespread at many colleges.  For the sake of the study, binge drinking means consuming five or more drinks on a single occasion in a two-week period for male students and four or more drinks for female students.  The findings of the study reveal that binge drinking doesn’t necessarily mean a student is alcoholic or in need of treatment but that there are serious social and health consequences associated with the behavior.

According to the CAS study, some campuses or the communities surrounding them inadvertently promote drinking and are known as “party campuses.”  The same schools known to be party schools remained the same throughout the 14 years of the study.  Some factors that produce an environment conducive to student drinking include:

-    Schools that strongly influence sororities, fraternities, and intercollegiate athletics.
-    Off-campus and unsupervised living arrangements.
-    Lax alcohol policies and enforcement in the school or its surrounding community or state.

The study also highlights circumstances beyond the college campus that can lead to excessive student drinking, including the liquor stores near colleges that sell alcohol at low prices, heavy promotion by the industry and related establishments, and special promotions of alcohol and alcohol-friendly events.  Students attending college in states that have the strongest restrictions against drinking or schools that ban alcohol or offer substance-free student housing options reported the lowest level of binge drinking among students.

Binge drinking is thought to be a valid indicator of future problems associated with alcohol although alcohol-related problems during college life were reported by the students.  Some specific concerns include:

-    Problems with academic performance.
-    The likelihood of risky sexual behaviors.
-    Impaired ability to drive safely.
-    Injury, including alcohol overdose.
-    Vandalism.

Students who drank to excess during college years were also more likely to consume tobacco products and experiment with illicit drugs.

Issues of secondhand drinking problems include vandalism, behaviors that disrupt other students’ sleep or study time, and sexual and physical assault.

The study, “What We Have Learned from the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing Attention on College Student Alcohol Consumption and the Environmental Conditions That Promote It,” has been published in the July issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.  Lead authors are Henry Wechsler, director of CAS and a lecturer on health, society, and human development at Harvard’s School of Public Health, and Toben Nelson, CAS’s assistant director and a University of Minnesota assistant professor of epidemiology and community health.

Source: Harvard School of Public Health

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