Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #109265

Jennifer Cremeens¹, Stuart Usdan, PhD, CHES², Ryan J. Martin, MS¹, and Laura Talbott, MS, CHES³. (1) Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, 800 Sumter St., HESC 221C, Columbia, SC 29208, 803-576-6245, jlcremeens@aol.com, (2) Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, Univeristy of South Carolina, 800 Sumter Street, HESC 220, Columbia, SC 29208, (3) Doctoral Student, University of South Carolina, 1800 Long Creek Drive 12-O, Columbia, SC 29210

With rates of binge drinking among young adults so extreme, college students are a primary focus for a range of alcohol prevention efforts. Students enrolled in college are more likely than their same-aged peers to use alcohol, drink heavily, and binge drink (SAMHSA, 2002). Most universities are attempting to change the alcohol environment by offering alcohol-free events, implementing social norms campaigns, and restricting alcohol marketing as a means to reduce heavy drinking among college students. With the exception of parental notification policies enforced at only a small proportion of schools, there have been relatively few strategies utilizing the role of parents in their alcohol prevention programming. In this study, a focus group of parents of first-year college students was conducted to explore concerns about the adjustment to college life and effective communication practices between parents and college students. Several themes that emerged from this focus group with regards to alcohol use included the responsibility of the university, strategies to open lines of communication, barriers to effective communication, and parental influence on college drinking. Findings from this focus group were used to inform the development of a questionnaire that will be sent to a sample of parents regarding parent-child communication about alcohol. In general, there is a lack of research on the use of parent-child communication on alcohol as a prevention strategy to reduce heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems among college students. By not including parents, researchers are excluding a potential mechanism to effectively deliver alcohol prevention messages to college-bound students.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the influence of alcohol as a primary concern of parents of first-year college students.
• Discuss the scope of parental involvement within the context of preventing alcohol related problems among college students.
• Identify ways to increase parent-child communication as a means of reducing heavy drinking among college students.

Keywords: Alcohol, College Students

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.