While movies like "Animal House" and the recently released "Beerfest" suggest a collegiate culture of reckless alcohol consumption, a new study suggests otherwise.
The study, released by the National Social Norms Resource Center at Northern Illinois University and set to be published in the "Journal of American College Health" at the end of September, found that college students take steps to protect themselves while drinking in far more concrete and systematic ways than, "Hold my beer while I do another keg stand."
Using data from surveys of 28,000 students at 44 colleges and universities, the study found that 73 percent of college students engage in at least one "protective behavior" on a regular basis when they drink, and that over half of students take a combination of two or three protective steps. These steps, in one way or another, help keep college students relatively safe in an atmosphere clouded with risk.
Michael Haines, the study's lead author and the director of the National Social Norms Resource Center, explained the reasoning behind the study.
"Between 70 percent and 80 percent of college students say they drink in national surveys, yet less than 19 percent have experienced some kind of harm as a result." Haines said. "When you get a situation where a risk behavior is occurring with that high of a frequency and harm is relatively uncommon, it sort of begs the question: What are college students doing right?"
Haines said that when he and his research team began asking college students this question in interviews and focus groups, they found that the number of protective measures students employ directly relates to the likelihood that harm will occur among those students.
"In a sense, one could say that protection trumps risk in terms of this study," Haines said. "As the number of protective behaviors a student uses increases, the risk decreases - and that's true across a variety of demographic variables."
Haines added that protective behaviors can range from counting empty beer cups to simply avoiding drinking on certain nights, a behavior referred to in the study as "situational abstinence." Such behaviors can be more important than other risk-related factors such as gender, health problems and even the amount of alcohol consumed per occasion.
"Even a student who drinks to a blood alcohol level of higher than .08 percent, if he engages in several protective behaviors, could have significantly lower risk of harm than a student who drinks much less but engages in no protective behaviors," Haines said.
According to Haines, the study could have important implications for how college administrators deal with alcohol issues on campus.
"Most of the alcohol abuse prevention strategies focus around trying to keep students from drinking," Haines said. "What this data suggests is that even students who drink quite a bit, if they practice protection, can reduce their risk of harm."
Haines said that he believes schools should spend more time focusing on and encouraging the fact that students drink moderately while regularly engaging in protective behaviors, rather than emphasizing complete abstinence.
"Campuses, which are already a safe and healthy place for people to be, would be more healthy and more safe if we just did that one thing," he said.
While most would consider Tufts to be less of a party school than many colleges and universities, "The Tufts University Alcohol Study" conducted in 2001 found a frequency of drinking among Tufts students that corresponded closely with national averages. According to the study, 81 percent of students classified themselves as drinkers, 68.3 percent of whom were underage. Of drinkers, 95.7 percent drank three times or less per week.
Margot Abels, the director of Tufts' Alcohol and Drug Prevention Services, said Tufts fits into the same mold as most colleges, especially those with similar programs, financial capabilities and student demographics.
"Drinking is a big issue at almost every school that's not a dry school," Abels said. "What our data shows is that Tufts isn't any better or any worse than schools with similar profiles."
Abels said the issue is one that can't be ignored, and that it should be looked at realistically.
"It's an issue that's always changing, and part of dealing with it is people staying educated about what's out there and how it affects things," Abels said. "But it's also about administrators here dealing with the reality that students drink, and not having everybody bury their heads."
Abels added, "At my office, we don't try to lecture anybody, and we don't judge anybody for what they're doing. Instead, we try to offer support and help that's targeted to the individual."
Abels' approach to alcohol prevention mirrors one of the main conclusions of the "The Tufts University Alcohol Study," which read, "To the extent that student drinking is influenced by students' perceptions of their peers' drinking, then it is important that students understand the actual drinking patterns and norms on campus."
However, Abels said she doubts how much student misperceptions contribute to drinking-related harm on campus on an average Friday night.
"I give students a lot of credit, and I think often they make their decisions for themselves and decide what's right for them," Abels said.
Abels said her main focus has been promoting "harm reduction," which will be the focus of the Alcohol and Drug Prevention Services' new campaign beginning this fall. The campaign will be aimed at providing students with effective strategies for lowering their risk when they decide to drink.
"I've been in the prevention field for years and years. There's a lot of research out there that tells us what helps students stay safe," Abels said. "It's about keeping students informed and staying on top of things, since there are always new issues coming into play."
Abels cited the increasing popularity of combining energy drinks with hard liquor, or taking prescription drugs such as Adderall before or during a night of drinking. She said that the fall campaign will include a component that focuses on the risks of such substance mixing to help steer students away from these more dangerous behaviors.
While Haines' study may have important implications at a variety of schools, some students were skeptical about how much protective behaviors actually affected their peers' safety.
Sophomore Mike Sherry said that, while Tufts students drink frequently, they drink differently than students at other colleges.
"It's just not as big here compared to [at] other schools," Sherry said. "We drink, but there isn't as much of a drinking culture here at Tufts as there is at other schools."
For Tufts students, Sherry said, the low frequency of drinking-related harm is a result of the generally moderate student body. Sherry "rarely" sees his peers taking specific steps to protect themselves, he said.
"Some [drinkers] bring along a sober person to watch their backs, I suppose," Sherry said. "Most don't, though."
According to "The Tufts University Alcohol Study," "safety" was the third most important reason non-drinkers listed as impetus for their abstinence. The study showed that such students were more concerned with remaining "in control" of their actions, which was picked more than any other option as non-drinkers' motivation to stay away from alcohol.
"There's always the kids who will let it dominate them at any school, but overall, there's less intense drinking at Tufts, and it's more casual," sophomore Derek Ricciuto said. "There's not always that pressure to live up to the Tufts reputation of drinking and partying, or whatever there is at some other schools."
Then too, Ricciuto added jokingly, "We can't fit that many people into our frats."
Sherry, who said he drinks moderately, agreed with Ricciuto and said that he has felt almost no pressure to drink during his time at Tufts. Though students tend to assume that college athletes will be pressured to drink more than they would like, Sherry, a member of Tufts' rugby team, said the pressure was "definitely not overwhelming" and that he has never had a problem saying no.
Whether or not safety is as large of a concern at Tufts as it is at schools with more intense party atmospheres, Abels said it's still important for students to educate and protect themselves.
"Drinking large amounts of alcohol is an unbelievably risky activity across the board," she said. "But the dangers can be specific to an individual at a given time."
"The most important thing is for us - and for parents especially -to not pretend that students aren't drinking," said Abels, "and to make sure they do it in the safest way possible."
