Alcohol Use and Problems at Colleges Banning Alcohol: Results of a National Survey

• NCJ Number: 189877
• Journal: Journal of Studies on Alcohol Volume: 62 Dated: March 2001 Pages: 133-141
• Author(s): Henry Wechsler Ph.D.; Jae Eun Lee Ph.D.; Jeana Gledhill-Hoyt M.P.H; Toben E. Nelson M.S.
• Date Published: March 2001
• Length: 9 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study reported the results of a national survey examining student alcohol use and the effects on heavy episodic drinking and its associated problems of U.S. college policies prohibiting alcohol use on campus for all students.

Abstract

Excessive alcohol use among students remains a persistent problem on U.S. college campuses. This study examined student alcohol use and associated problems at U.S. colleges that ban alcohol for all students on campus. A nationally representative sample of students attending U.S. 4-year colleges completed questionnaires regarding alcohol use and related behaviors in the spring of 1999. The responses of 2,252 students attending 19 ban schools were compared to 9,051 students attending 76 non-ban schools. Results indicated that students at ban colleges were 30 percent less likely to be heavy episodic drinkers and more likely to abstain from alcohol. The lower rates of heavy episodic drinking applied to students whether or not they were heavy episodic drinkers in high school. However, among drinkers, students at ban schools engaged in as much extreme drinking as drinkers at schools that did not ban alcohol and experienced the same rate of alcohol-related problems. At schools that ban alcohol, fewer students experienced second-hand effects of the drinking of others than did students at non-ban schools. In addition, students at ban schools were not more likely to drink and drive than those students at non-ban schools. The study suggested that a campus ban on alcohol may help those who were not heavy episodic drinkers in high school continue to be non-heavy episodic drinkers in college and help former heavy episodic drinkers in high school discontinue this behavior. In addition, ban colleges did not have significantly lower rates of high school heavy episodic drinkers. Since this was a correlational study, it could not be determined whether the lower rates of heavy episodic drinking were due to the ban or to other factors, such as self-selection of students to these schools. Ban schools did not enroll fewer high school heavy drinkers. References and tables