THURSDAY, Nov. 6, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Correcting college students' widespread misconceptions about how much alcohol other students drink helps reduce drinking, says a University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill study.
An effective way of doing that is through continuing public education programs that inform students that reports of campus drinking across the United States are routinely exaggerated, that alcohol can seriously damage health, and that students don't need to drink to have fun.
"Almost everyone misperceives how much college students actually drink. When people are asked to estimate it, they almost always way overshoot the reality," Dr. Robert D. Foss, manager of alcohol studies at the UNC Highway Safety Research Center, says in a prepared statement.
In 1997, Foss and his colleagues took voluntary, anonymous breath-alcohol measurements as UNC students returned to their residences on both weekend and weekday evenings. They found two of three students had nothing to drink -- even on weekends -- and many of the others had only a few drinks.
On Mondays through Wednesdays, typically, 85 percent of the students did not have any alcohol.
In the next phase of the study, the researchers publicized their findings to college students. This included talks at first-year student orientation sessions, posters and printed material distributed to every residence hall room, along with a financial incentive for students to display the posters.
After conducting the student education program, the researchers again repeated their evening breath analysis surveys in 1999 and 2002.
"The bottom line was that on a number of different measures, student drinking had declined. Self-reported drinking was down, self-reported heavy drinking, which some people call 'binge-ing,' was down, and, most importantly, measured breath alcohol concentration were down," Foss says.
"By 2002, the proportion of students with any alcohol had declined by 15 percent, and the proportion with a breath-alcohol concentration greater than 0.05 per cent was down 23 percent," Foss says.
By 2002, 91 percent of all respondents were aware of the "2 out of 3" message and 82 percent understood it. The study found that 51 percent of first-year students and 45 percent of all respondents who understood the message believed it accurately represented drinking at UNC.
"The high degree of awareness and understanding of the "2 out of 3" message among UNC students indicates the social norms program was successful in reaching its target audience. The increased belief in the accuracy of the campaign suggests the primary message, which specifies that on 'party' nights most students drink little, if at all, is becoming more accepted as the reality of student drinking on campus," Foss says.
More information
Here's where you can learn more about college student drinking prevention.
