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Binge Drinking on the Rise at US Colleges

According to a report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), drinking-related deaths among students ages 18-24 have increased from 1,400 a year in 1998 to 1,825 in 2005. Binge drinking also increased during this period, with 45 percent of students reporting having binged on alcohol in the past month (compared to 42 percent in 1998). In addition, students admitting driving drunk rose from about 26 to 29 percent.

"Unfortunately, what we see is the proportions of college students who engage in binge drinking has increased," said Ralph Hingson, director of the NIAAA’s division of epidemiology and prevention research.

"There's a whole culture that needs to be changed around drinking and driving under the influence among young people in the United States," Hingson said. The cheap cost of alcohol and the fact that many alcohol manufacturers target high school and college students add to the problem, he said.

Hingson’s team used information from government databases and national surveys on alcohol use. They emphasized in their report that people who binge drink not only put themselves at risk, but also risk the lives and safety of others. The team found that there are about 700,000 students who are assaulted each year by an intoxicated college student and that about 100,000 sexual assaults are linked to college drinking. In addition, about half of drinking-related traffic deaths among college students are people other than the drunk driver.

To reverse these trends, society needs to take drinking among college students more seriously, says Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. “Options for bad judgment available to a college student are determined by society, and ours is decidly ambivalent about alcohol,” Katz said. “Drinking to excess is often given favorable treatment in the media and in social groups.”

Katz also said that young people drinking to excess need to be discouraged by friends in their own peer group. “For this to occur, our society must both render and convey a clearer verdict opposing this casual form of alcohol abuse," he said.

Hingson said that there are a number of interventions that have shown success, including counseling at-risk and high-risk drinkers, raising the price of alcohol, and getting colleges and community health programs to work together. Some college presidents think the drinking age should be lowered, but Hingson points out that binge drinking mostly occurs in 21- to 24-year-olds, not 18- to 20-year-olds.

"It appears to me that some colleges are not implementing the interventions, where we've got evidence that they work," Hingson said. "The challenge for us is to make sure colleges understand what things are working. We have to get them to expand screening and interventions to reach wider populations of students and work with communities."

Source: HealthDay News, At U.S. Colleges, Binge Drinking Is on the Rise, June 15, 2009