Binge Drinking on Campus Lower in States with Stronger Alcohol Control Laws

Binge drinking on college campuses, a significant public health factor linked to deaths, injuries, rapes, assaults and poor student performance, is significantly lower in states where fewer adults are binge drinkers and where laws discourage excessive consumption, according to a new study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The study, which appears in the March 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, makes it clear that college location may play a role in determining their drinking behavior and suggests that states can be strong partners in helping colleges reduce binge drinking.

The rate of binge drinking among college students was about 32 percent lower -- 36 percent compared to 53 percent -- in the 10 states with the lowest rates of adult binge drinking compared to the ten states with the highest. Furthermore, campus binge drinking rates were 31 percent lower -- 33 percent compared to 48 percent -- in seven states that had four or more laws targeting high volume sales of alcohol versus states that did not.

"What we discovered is that a student who goes to school in a state with fewer adult binge drinkers is less likely to be a binge drinker," said Toben F. Nelson of the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (CAS), a project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "These states also tended to have well-developed alcohol control policies. The good news is that if more states and communities take relatively straightforward actions -- such as enacting laws that discourage high volume sales -- they could see fewer drinking problems on college campuses and in their broader populations as well."

Nelson and his colleagues compared binge-drinking behavior on college campuses, as documented by the CAS survey, to state-specific data on binge drinking in the general population collected by CDC as part of its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).

They also considered whether states had enacted laws that specifically target high volume sales. These laws include statutes that mandate registering kegs, make it illegal to drive with blood alcohol levels of .08 percent or higher, and place restrictions on happy hours, open containers, beer sold in pitchers, and billboards and other types of alcohol advertising.

"We have previously found that environmental factors such as low price, special promotions of alcohol, and high density of alcohol outlets near the college campus support heavier drinking by college students. In this study we have also focused on the pattern of drinking by adult populations and state control laws," said Henry Wechsler, Ph.D. a co-author of the paper and director of college alcohol studies at The Harvard School of Public Health.

"Most alcohol purchases and consumption occurs off campus anyway, and so it's not surprising that laws and policies that seek to limit consumption amongst the general public would also play a role in limiting binge drinking among college students," said Timothy S. Naimi, M.D. of the Alcohol Team in the CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. "Basically, having programs to reduce binge drinking on college campuses in the absence of broad-based community interventions to do likewise may be a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic," Naimi said.

"Overall, we recommend that states and communities implement effective prevention strategies for binge drinking, including increasing state alcohol taxes, enforcing minimum legal drinking age laws, and enforcing laws prohibiting alcohol sales to already-intoxicated persons," said Robert D. Brewer, M.D., a co-author of the paper and Leader of the Alcohol Team in the CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

The pay-off in terms of lives and dollars saved could be large.

Excessive alcohol consumption accounts for 75,000 deaths and $184 billion in economic costs in the U.S each year. As for its effect on college students, alcohol is a factor in the deaths of 1400 college students each year. College students currently spend $5.5 billion a year on alcohol, more than they spend on textbooks, soft drinks, tea, milk, juice and coffee combined.

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