Despite implementation of a variety of policies and programs designed to reduce under-age and excessive drinking on college campuses, alcohol abuse among college students remains a serious problem. Recent figures indicate that 62% of young adults aged 18 to 22 enrolled in college report using alcohol in the last month, 41% report binge drinking in the last month, and 16% report heavy use of alcohol in the last month. These figures for college students are higher than those observed for same-age peers who are not in college, and have remained fairly stable over the past two decades. Given that alcohol abuse can have serious health and social consequences, the high rate of alcohol abuse in college is an important public health concern. We currently do not know the extent to which alcohol abuse during college is associated with subsequent adult alcohol abuse or with experiencing the long-term health and social consequences typically associated with alcohol abuse. Further, we do not know whether alcohol abuse during college is more or less detrimental than alcohol use among college-age young adults who do not attend college. To fully understand the importance and long-term consequences of drinking during college it is essential to place college drinking within the more general context of drinking both in and outside of college during the college-age years. If patterns of lifetime alcohol use are established during the college-age years, then it is important to examine college-age drinking in general, and determine whether college drinking is especially relevant for subsequent patterns of alcohol use and for experiencing the long-term effects of college-age drinking. There is also insufficient information about the risk factors associated with college and college-age drinking, and whether the college experience exacerbates their influence on alcohol abuse. The proposed research will examine longitudinally from high school to college-age to midlife the evolution and health and social consequences of college and college-age drinking using non-drinkers and individuals who do not attend college as comparison groups. The analytic approach we propose to use permits us to control for unobserved differences among these groups and college drinkers that may bias the estimated effects of college and college-age drinking.
| Bobo, Janet Kay; Klepinger, Daniel H; Dong, Frederick B (2007) Identifying social drinkers likely to consume alcohol during pregnancy: findings from a prospective cohort study. Psychol Rep 101:857-70 |
