Determinants of Underage College Student Drinking: Implications for Four Major Alcohol Reduction Strategies

Abstract

Guided by the assumptions of the social ecological model and the social marketing approach, this study provides a simultaneous and comprehensive assessment of 4 major alcohol reduction strategies for college campuses: school education programs, social norms campaigns, alcohol counter-marketing, and alcohol control policies. Analysis of nationally representative secondary survey data among 5,472 underage students reveals that alcohol marketing seems to be the most formidable risk factor for underage drinking, followed by perceived drinking norms (injunctive norm) and lax policy enforcement. This analysis suggests that, to make social norms campaigns and alcohol control policies more effective, alcohol reduction strategies should be developed to counter the powerful influence of alcohol marketing and promotions.

Factors associated with reductions in alcohol use between high school and college: an analysis of data from the College Alcohol Study

“…Students who did not binge drink but who had reported consuming alcohol within the past 30 days are classified as freshman non-binge drinkers, and students who had not consumed alcohol within the past 30 days are classified as freshman non-drinkers. Questions about non-binge drinking were asked, with recall periods of 1 week and 30 days, and most of the literature uses recall periods of either 2 weeks6,8,13,16–18 or the past 30 days,12,15 so we chose to measure non-binge drinking over 30 days rather than 1 week.…”

“…Because we are exploring a number of different possible relationships, we use variables from a number of different categories: demographic and parental background characteristics,7,14,15,23 other substance abuse,9 the consequences of other students’ alcohol use,6,16–18 the social environment (including living arrangements),8,14,23–25 student activities,14 and attitudes toward alcohol policy and exposure to alcohol education 8,13…”

Reducing Binge Drinking in Adolescents through Implementation of the Strategic Prevention Framework

“…It has been suggested that implementing environmental changes, including the enforcement of policy, may be more likely to reduce underage drinking than single program interventions targeting only individual-level behavior change (e.g., alcohol education programs) (Paek & Hove, 2012). Interventions using such approaches often consider multiple ecological levels as it relates to enforcement, policies, and practices to address outcomes such as binge drinking among youth (Schelleman-Offermans et al, 2012).…”

“…Interventions using such approaches often consider multiple ecological levels as it relates to enforcement, policies, and practices to address outcomes such as binge drinking among youth (Schelleman-Offermans et al, 2012). The literature suggests that implementing interventions that target multiple systems of influence is useful in promoting multisectoral engagement in the implementation and sustainability of environmental changes, which makes it more likely that reductions in alcohol consumption will be maintained over time (Giesbrecht & Greenfield, 2003; Paek & Hove, 2012; Williams et al, 2006). …”

It is pleasant and heavy: convergence of visual contents in tobacco, alcohol and food marketing in Brazil

“…The impact of commercial advertising on the abuse of tobacco (Rigotti et al, 2005;Hanewinkel et al, 2010Hanewinkel et al, , 2011Lovato et al, 2011), alcohol (Henriksen et al, 2008;Faria et al, 2011;Gordon et al, 2011;Morgenstern et al, 2011;Koordeman et al, 2012) and unhealthy foods (Boyland et al, 2011;Ferguson et al, 2012;Keller et al, 2012;Mekhmoukh et al, 2012;Scully et al, 2012) has been widely demonstrated in the literature. Moreover, in recent years, a number of studies have dealt with the formulation and effectiveness of public policies that attempt to regulate or even ban the advertising of these products (Anderson et al, 2009;Casswell, 2012;Paek and Hove, 2012). However, few studies have investigated the possible similarities in the marketing strategies (O'Donnell and Jeong, 2000) adopted in these industries, in particular the practice of global strategies (Mitry and Smith, 2009) and, therefore, of the commitment to the standardization of consumption habits (Chung, 2009).…”