New College Drinking Prevention Methods Devised

Over the past couple of decades, researchers have been drawing attention to a very worrying trend, namely the fact that teens in college tend to drink a lot. That wouldn't be a problem in itself, if it weren't for the fact that more than 1,500 of them die in alcohol-related deaths each year, and also in accidents, when they drive inebriated. A new series of studies comes to show that it may not be impossible to stop this trend, if authorities put in the minimum amount of effort.

Publishing in the latest edition of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, experts from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), in Bethesda, Maryland, led by Ralph W. Hingson, Sc. D, M.P.H, say that the incidence of alcohol consumption has actually increased among US teenagers from 1998 to 2005, and that the number of deaths related to this phenomenon has soared from 1,440 to 1,825, in the 18-to-24 age range. Additionally, the study shows, the incidence of binge drinking (occasionally consuming alcoholic beverages) and driving under the influence of alcohol have also increased among the 21-to-24 years age range.

The study was published in a special college drinking supplement to the Journal, and was edited by Boston University School of Public Health Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences William DeJong, PhD. “College students are being swept up in the same societal problems as the rest of the population, and that's discouraging,” he says of the new research results. However, he adds, pieces of evidence also show the fact that prevention problems can significantly reduce binge drinking and driving.

“You really need a full complement of efforts at all of these levels. This is not just a student problem or a college problem; it's a community problem. The vast majority of students are making good decisions. The message here is that there are programs and policies that work. These studies make the case that prevention is possible,” DeJong explains. Between 2004 and 2005, the NIAAA worked on 15 campuses known for their students' drinking habits with a number of experts, elaborating prevention programs that, it the end, proved to work more effectively than the scientists anticipated.