Members of the Tufts community gathered last night for a town meeting-style discussion about the results of the 2004 Alcohol & Drug Use and Freshmen First Week Experience Surveys, which were released in February.
The discussion centered around five panelists affiliated with the survey. Margot Abels, Director of Drug and Alcohol Education Services, facilitated the talk.
Lisa O'Leary of Tufts Institutional Research, Health Services Director Michelle Bowdler, Community Health and Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy Research Associate Ray Hyatt, and Charlene Galerneau, director of the Community Health Program were joined by junior Jin Kim and senior Tiaira Winn from the Student Health Advisory Board (SHAB) and the Drug and Alcohol Education Program, respectively.
The meeting was called, Abels said, to encourage "dialogue around drug and alcohol issues because it's important to talk about related issues in our community in order to effect change. We need to ask, 'What does this data mean?'"
Bowdler was first to speak. "The value of the data lies in helping us know where scarce resources might be needed most," she said. "[The survey] has helped us be more clear about where we need to work with [students]."
She highlighted an irony in health care resource allocation. "A law was passed requiring the meningococcal vaccine for college undergraduates. I have calculated that Tufts students have spent half a million dollars on the vaccine," Bowdler said.
According to Bowdler, however, only 3,000 people contract meningitis nationwide every year, and only 30 college students die from it. In comparison, approximately 1,700 college students die as a result of alcohol use and alcohol-related incidents each year, and thousands are sexually assaulted under the influence of alcohol.
Bowdler said she understood that alcohol consumption is a facet of campus life. "We know people drink but we also believe people want to drink safely," she said. "Ten percent of freshmen reported that they were taken advantage of sexually during their first week of school. That's a big deal."
O'Leary said that the surveys were of a "risk assessment" nature and that the results were in line with other surveys on substance abuse on U.S. college campuses. She specifically referred to figures obtained in a study at Harvard University in 2001 and in the nationwide Core Study in 2003.
According to O'Leary, 17 percent of Tufts students identify themselves as non-drinkers while 20 percent in Harvard's study did. Numbers for cocaine use are just as similar, she said. "At Tufts, 4.2 percent of students do cocaine while in the Harvard study the number was at four percent, and in the Core [Study] the number was five percent."
Less than 90 percent of drug users at Tufts have used hard drugs like cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, inhalants, Special K or heroin.
The numbers for marijuana use among upperclassmen who use drugs at Tufts - 83.7 percent - is higher than national numbers, while tobacco use for upperclassmen - 60.2 percent of - is lower. Both of these figures represent students who claimed to "have used marijuana" and "have used tobacco."
Galerneau, who was responsible for the last survey conducted in Fall 1999, said that the numbers in this most recent survey are similar to those from five years ago. "Four of five drank then and four out of five drink now," she said.
Though the 1999 survey only asked questions about alcohol, it did include questions on first-year experiences at Tufts.
"First year drinking was also an issue back then," Galerneau said. "We saw and still see that freshmen drink less often but drink more when they do."
Over 60 percent of the Class of 2008 respondents said they drank alcohol and 10 percent said they used drugs during their first week at Tufts.
"We found the numbers on sexual activity under the influence most shocking, really," O'Leary said.
Over half of upperclassmen responded that they had "hooked up with a new sexual partner" after drinking alcohol and 16.8 percent said they had had sexual intercourse under the influence of alcohol when they otherwise would not have. An additional 2.6 percent said they had personally taken sexual advantage of another person after drinking.
"The results of substance abuse are the most important things we care about," Hyatt said. "Over half of injuries to young adults are alcohol-related and we know that alcohol and drug use leads to people dropping out of college, earning lower grades, having unsafe sex and using new substances."
"Students need to be more aware of academic effects from substance abuse," Kim said.
Due to drinking, 44.5 percent of survey respondents said they suffered memory loss, 36.2 percent said they have missed a class, and 9.7 percent said they performed poorly on a test.
Hyatt also addressed the issue of how students perceive the substance use habits of their peers. "People think others drink more and this opens the door to more drinking," he said.
Over 75 percent of freshmen and 65 percent of upperclassmen said that they perceived themselves as drinking less than their peers and 65.5 percent of all Tufts students know another student who is "headed for an alcohol or drug problem."
But, only 45.6 percent of Tufts undergraduates said they believe alcohol is a problem at Tufts. "There is an obvious disparity among these numbers," Kim said. "It needs to be addressed."
Winn addressed why students should care about such survey results. "These results should inspire people to think about what they can do to avoid these predicaments."
One student asked if there was any question regarding whether or not students felt they were responsible drinkers or knew their body's alcohol limit.
Galerneau said that while there is not and "it is hard to come to an understanding on what that means seeing that some believe finding your way back home and into your bed defines responsible drinking, discussion on the topic is very useful."
The Drug and Alcohol Education program will be hosting individual discussion groups on specific data in the next few weeks and next semester. The results of both surveys are available on their Web site.
