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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Richard Scribner, MD, MPH, Sandy Johnson, PhD, Katherine Theall, PhD, Neal Simonsen, PhD, and Karen Mason, PhD. Epidemiology, LSU School of Public Health, 1600 Canal Street 8th Floor, New Orleans, LA 70112, 504 338 5811, rscrib@lsuhsc.edu

Objectives: College drinking is recognized as a major risk factor for campus crime. Most studies have examined this relation in terms of individual-level risk factors. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the campus alcohol environment and assaultive violence on campus. Methods: An ecologic study of 32 U.S. campuses participating in the Social Norms Marketing Research Program (SNMRP) was conducted. Campus-level measures of individual drinking included aggregate measures of student-level drinking from SNMRP surveys. Measures of the campus alcohol environment were assessed in terms of the density of on- and off-sale outlets surrounding each campus (i.e., outlets per 1000 students). The rate of assaultive violence on campus (i.e., rape, robbery, and assault) was measured as the number of total number of assaults per 10,000 students enrolled, obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Results: Assaultive violence on campus was associated with both on-sale (B = 0.0295; S.E.=0.009) and off-sale (B = 0.0796; S.E.=0.026) outlet density. Mean individual drinking patterns, e.g., proportion of bingers (B = 7.789; S.E.=1.836) were also associated with assaultive violence. Adding mean individual drinking patterns to models with outlet density reduced but did not remove the association with alcohol outlet density. Conclusions: Assaultive violence on campus was strongly associated with both the mean level of drinking on campus and the density of alcohol outlets surrounding the campus. The results suggests that part of the association between outlet density and assaultive violence may be explained by increased mean level of drinking.

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