Binge drinking no stranger on U.S. campuses

BOSTON (Reuters) -- Most college students have a pretty good idea of what binge drinking is and how it affects their campuses, according to Harvard University School of Public Health researchers.

In a report in the September issue of the Journal of American College Health, the Harvard team led by Henry Wechsler found that most college students have a largely accurate perception of the levels of drinking at their schools.

"And they have a pretty good idea of the percentage of their fellow students who are binge drinkers," Wechsler said in a telephone interview.

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Conducted last year, the study of 14,138 students at 119 U.S. colleges in 40 states has important implications for what is called "the social norms approach to reducing excessive drinking," the researchers said.

This approach assumes that students base their drinking on a perception of the campus drinking norm, and that students typically overestimate that norm, leading them to drink more.

Social norm advocates assume that providing students with accurate information about the campus drinking rate will lead them to lower alcohol consumption.

"While that may work for the 13 percent of students who said they were binge drinkers -- it probably won't work for the 87 percent who aren't," Wechsler said, adding that such an approach might actually cause the majority of college students to consume more alcohol.

Most students define binge drinking as having six drinks in a row for a male, and five drinks in a row for female. Researchers had defined it as five drinks in a row for men and four drinks in a row for women.

Northeast and Midwestern schools have a higher percentage of binge drinkers than do the South or West, Wechsler said. "People speculate it's because of the weather. In the colder climates one is forced to spend more time confined inside," he said.

One of the consequences of heavy boozing "is date rape in a large percentage of women who have a binge-drinking occasion," Wechsler said, adding that the women were either forced to have sex or were not in any condition to consent to it.

He expected further results from the study to be released before year's end.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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