Alcohol Consumption Among College Students: A Public Health Perspective

1. Alcohol Consumption Among College Students: A Public Health Perspective Mark Pabst, MPH Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology University of California, San Francisco

2. The Existentialist Questions • Who am I? • A clinical researcher • A behavioral epidemiologist • Why am I here? • Nepotism • To provide an introduction to some public health approaches to problem drinking in colleges and universities

3. Three Contemporary Public Health Approaches to the Problem of College Drinking • Using social norms • Changing campus environments • Increasing levels of social capital

4. What is Public Health? • Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals. “ • Public health is concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis.

5. Public Health and College Binge Drinking • Death: 1,700 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes (Hingson et al., 2005). • Injury: 599,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol (Hingson et al., 2005). • Assault: More than 696,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking (Hingson et al., 2005). • Unsafe Sex: 400,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 had unprotected sex and more than 100,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 report having been too intoxicated to know if they consented to having sex (Hingson et al., 2002). • Suicide: Between 1.2 and 1.5 percent of students indicate that they tried to commit suicide within the past year due to drinking (Presley et al., 1998).

6. Source: http://www.duke.edu/~amwhite/College/college3.htm

7. Meet the Drinkers • Males • Whites • Members of fraternities and sororities • Athletes • First-year students who have engaged in binge drinking in high-school. (Johnston et al., 2001b; Meilman et al., 1994, 1999; Presley et al., 1996a, 1996b; Wechsler et al., 1996, 1997a, 1998, 2000b).

8. …And the Abstainers • Students at 2-year institutions • Those who attend religious schools • Students enrolled at commuter schools • Students attending historically Black colleges and universities. (Meilman et al., 1995; Presley et al., 1996a, 1996b; Wechsler et al., 2000b).

9. Other Factors Associated with College Binge Drinking • Access to low-cost alcohol • Attending a college with a high rate of binge drinking • Feeling a need to “fit in” • A belief that most friends binge drink

10. Traditional Public Health Approach • Identify problem behaviors • Use available statistics to identify specific behaviors that affect a population’s health • The principal of “Harm Reduction” • Educate target audiences about how behaviors are harmful • Develop materials aimed at those at-risk that emphasize potential downsides of the behavior • Harm to health is often secondary

13. Social Norms Marketing • SNM uses commercial advertising techniques to correct misperceptions of social norms, thereby decreasing the perceived pressure to engage in a behavior • Instead of identifying problems, SNM messages contain statistics about the non-problem behavior of a majority of people in order to encourage that behavior in others. • Uses nonjudgmental messages about the behaviors of a majority of a well-identified target audience. Source: http://www.higheredcenter.org/environmental-management/change/normative/social-norms

16. Drawbacks of SNM • Must collect or obtain data showing students overestimate their peers’ binge drinking. • If there is no misperception of the norm, then strategy likely to be unsuccessful. • Strategy has been employed widely • “Participants should be aware that this case study is not a request to develop a social norms campaign.”

17. Other Public Health Models: A Matter of Degree “Rather than blame students for their behavior or try to persuade them to stop drinking, participants in A Matter of Degree are identifying the environmental factors such as alcohol advertising and marketing, institutional policies and practices, local ordinances—even social and cultural beliefs and behaviors—that converge to encourage alcohol abuse, and work together to create positive changes. “ Source: www.alcoholpolicymd.com/programs/amod.htm

18. AMOD: The Specifics • AMOD targets the easy accessibility, low price, and heavy marketing of alcohol in college communities • Creates mandatory responsible beverage-service training • Results in increased monitoring of outlets selling alcohol near campus • Encourages adoption of strict parental notification policies • Implements more stringent accreditation requirements for fraternities/sororities • Sponsors alcohol-free activities • Increases substance free space in dorms Source: (Weitzman et al., 2003c).

19. Social Capital • What is Social Capital? • “The collective value of all social networks and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other” -Robert Putnam • The social resources,trust, reciprocity, and mutual aid in a social group. • How is it Measured? • Networks • Trust • Collective action • Social inclusion • Information and communication

20. Social Capital and Problem Drinking • “Social capital may play an importantrole in preventing binge drinking in the college setting” (Weitzman and Kawachi , 2005) • Campuses with higher-than-average levels of social capitalhad a 26% lower individual risk for binge drinking • High social capital at HBC cause of low rates of binge drinking? • Anti-drinking programs aimed at increasing social capital have yet to be comprehensively evaluated

21. Questions?