Categories

• Addiction Research
• Alcohol Abuse
• Alcoholism
• Binge Drinking
• Children of Alcoholics
• Crime
• Depression
• Drunk Driving
• Marketing Alcohol
• Mental Health
• Other Drugs
• Other Types of Addiction
• Parties
• Prevention
• Research
• Resources
• Stimulants
• Stress
• Teens
• Underage Drinking
• Women & Alcohol
• Young Adults

College Binge Drinking Tags

Higher Prices Could Lead to Lower College Student Drinking

Time and again, research has shown that college students are a prime drinking demographic. They also tend to engage in binge drinking and gathering for drinking parties. To create even more opportunities to drink, college bars offer low price specials to get students in the door.

According to a Science Daily release, a new study found that low alcohol prices at drinking establishments pose genuine threats to public health and safety. This finding challenges common arguments by college bar managers who claim the specials are only to attract customers to better bargains and not to entice college students to drink.

"Most of this prior research has relied on population-level data, for example, comparing alcohol taxes and alcohol sales at the state level," said Ryan J. O'Mara, a graduate research fellow at the University of Florida and corresponding author for the study.

"Our study examines this price-behavior relationship at the individual, or consumer, level in a natural drinking setting. We did this study in college bars because previous research has shown that young adults are more sensitive to alcohol price changes than older populations who generally have more disposable income."

In all, researchers found that for every $1.40 increase in the average price paid for a standard drink, a patron is 30 percent less likely to leave the bar district with a BrAC above 0.08. In essence, higher prices for alcohol were associated with less risk of being inebriated when driving away from a bar.

"In our current economic recession," said O'Mara, "it is quite possible that some people with little disposable income are highly sensitive to alcohol price changes. A future study should seek to determine which specific populations are most vulnerable to drink discounting at bars."