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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Hugh D. Spitler, PhD MPH and Martie P. Thompson, PhD. Public Health Sciences, Clemson University, 509 Edwards Hall Box 340745, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0745, 864-656-7434, hspitle@clemson.edu

Drinking patterns among college students resulting in rapid or prolonged intoxication are strongly associated with increased risk for immediate and long-term negative outcomes. An ecological model of these high risk drinking patterns has been developed linking individual, social, and environmental factors that contribute to the problem of high risk drinking among college students. Within this model, heavy alcohol use among college students is defined as part of a larger college lifestyle pattern, in which student risk behaviors are organized into recurring patterns within specific environmental settings. College lifestyles and life situations interact in ways that shape and limit the choices of students attempting to control or moderate their alcohol consumption. The combination of habitual recurring risk behaviors and specific social and physical contexts exerts a disproportionate influence on high-risk alcohol consumption patterns among college students. Preliminary data collected in the first year of a three-year NIAAA Rapid Response cooperative agreement grant project have been used to identify and link the consequences of alcohol abuse among college students to specific student behavior patterns occurring within structured environmental settings unique to the college environment. Rates of high risk drinking and alcohol-related negative consequences have been linked to specific high-risk contexts shaped by the interaction between established habitual behavior patterns (lifestyle) and specific social and environmental contexts (life situation). The collected data is being used develop “context-based” alcohol skills training programs to make students more aware of specific high-risk contexts and provide them with refusal skills tailored for these high risk contexts.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to

• Define high risk contexts within the college environment contributing to alcohol abuse.
• Identify the ways lifestyles and life situations interact within the college environment to encourage high risk drinking among college students.
• Create more effective ways to help college students recognize and resist the influence of high risk contexts on their patterns of drinking.

Keywords: College Students, Alcohol Problems

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered