218477 Tobacco and Drug Use among Students at a Two-Year Institution in North Carolina

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Rachel Ward, MPH , Health Education and Promotion, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
Beth Chaney, PhD, MCHES , Health Education and Behavior, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Jennifer Cremeens, PhD, MSPH , Department of Health Education and Promotion, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
Shannon Gallagher , Department of Public Health, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
Christen Gillis , Department of Public Health, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
Objective: Limited research has addressed tobacco and drug use among community college students in the United States. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the use of tobacco and drugs among students at a community college. Secondarily, this study sought to compare student drug use between the community college and a local four year institution.

Methods: Participants (n=581) were recruited from a stratified random sample of classes. Tobacco and drug use was measured using the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey-Community College Long Form, which is a 39-item instrument, developed to assess perceptions of alcohol and drug use behaviors among community college students. Descriptive statistics were used to assess participants' frequency of tobacco and drug use and related behaviors.

Results: Participants reported more frequent use of tobacco (24% of participants used tobacco all 30 days) than all other drugs, followed by marijuana (6.8%) and amphetamines (1.0%). Excluding tobacco, the prevalence of reported drug use among participants was similar to reported drug use among students at a local four year institution. However, the frequency of reported use among community college students was higher than their counterparts' reported use (eg; 6.8% daily use of marijuana versus 2.5%). Participants' reported daily use of tobacco was three times greater than that of students at the four year institution (24% versus 8%).

Discussion: With limited research on drug use behaviors in this population, further research is needed in order to design and expand strategic prevention efforts to two year institutions.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Epidemiology
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
By the end of this session, participants will be able to describe drug use behaviors among students attending a 2-year insitution.

Keywords: College Students, Drug Use

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am currently the Project Coordinator for the grant project that was to collect the data being presented in this abstract.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.