20. Drinking by high risk college students needs attention

By Tom O'Connell

In the media we are often stirred up by allegedly scientific studies and surveys that caution us about some behaviors and encourage us to perform others. When the studies involve one or two hundred people I am not impressed. But when a study from a reputable institution involves several thousand people I take notice.

In the Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education I found the results of an Indiana University study of more than 12,000 university students who completed the Student Alcohol Questionnaire. They represented every state in the U.S., and the results are thought-provoking. Slightly more than 70% of all students consumed alcohol at least once during the year, and 20.6% were heavy drinkers. A "heavy drinker" is one who consumes 5 or more drinks per occasion once a week or more often.

Interestingly, maximum safe consumption of alcohol in this study was considered to be 21 drinks per week for males and 14 drinks for females. If people consumed more, they were believed to be at risk for serious health consequences. These are high limits, and many people who consume a similar number of drinks a week can be classified as "problem drinker" or "alcoholic." But for purposes of this and other studies, "safe consumption" usually falls within these guidelines.

 The study also noted that 31% of males surveyed consumed over 21 drinks per week, and 19.2% of females consumed over 14 drinks a week. Looking only at the drinkers surveyed, the study reported 28.4% as "heavy drinkers" and about 71% as "light to moderate" drinkers.

Students who exhibited heavier drinking and a higher incidence of problems related to drinking fell into the following categories: men, whites, under 21, Roman Catholics, nonreligious people, students with low grades, fraternity/sorority members, students from the Northeast, those in small communities, and students in private schools and colleges with less than 10,000 students. So these would be considered the highest risk people.

Significantly, the connection between spirituality and drinking was highlighted in this study. A higher percentage of drinkers were found among those who did not consider religion important. And among drinkers, people who didn't think religion was important were likely to be heavy drinkers. The less religious consumed twice as many drinks compared to the very religious. Almost half of all Protestants were abstainers, and few Catholics and Jews fell into this category,  the study noted.

The report concludes that the results are similar to other studies during the past 20 years, and no dramatic changes have been noted. It's strange, isn't it? If we thought a similar number of our young people were threatened by some other disease we would be waging a massive effort to turn the situation around. But here we are, twenty years later, with the same threat to life and limb affecting vast numbers of our college-age population.

The researchers concluded that prevention programs should focus on the groups at high risk for alcohol abuse instead of organizing unfocussed prevention efforts indiscriminately aimed at all university students. "Programs aimed at these specific groups would be a much more efficient use of resources in an era of fiscal restraint." 

- Back -