A Hard Look at Binge Drinking

College binge drinking is present in different degrees of severity on most college campuses. The Crimson staff has provided an important service by studying and openly discussing alcohol issues at Harvard. It has offered insight into the ways in which Harvard both stands apart from and is similar to other college campuses, including a close look at the factors that may tend to mitigate heavy drinking at Harvard as well as the second-hand effects of binge drinking on other members of the community. The latter focus, on the social consequences of alcohol consumption, is vital to identifying and solving the problem of heavy drinking on college campuses.

As The Crimson noted, the College Alcohol Study at the School of Public Health has been actively involved in the assessment of problem drinking among college students. We have conducted three national studies, each including more than 14,000 students and covering 140 colleges and universities. The intent of these surveys has not been to emphasize the amount of binge drinking, as some critics allege, but rather to compile and analyze how students nationally describe their own drinking.

The basic approach of the CAS has been to view college drinking as a public health issue. In our society, we are accustomed to viewing most problems in a very individual light. For instance, a person's alcohol abuse is almost automatically viewed entirely as a psychological problem, a personal moral failing or a weakness of character. But serious alcohol problems are influenced by a number of factors, including the environment in which the individual is placed. The CAS takes the issue of problem drinking--which on college campuses most often takes the form of binge drinking--and views it not solely as an individual problem, but as a campus and community problem.

Why is it a community problem? The answer comes from the students who have participated in the surveys. They tell us about environmental factors that facilitate their drinking: the supply of cheap beer and other alcohol and a peer group that encourages heavy drinking--at nearby bars that cater to students, at all-you-can-drink parties or at football tailgates.

It is no coincidence that fraternity and sorority members binge drink nationally at twice the frequency of other college students. Over the years, fraternities have provided an environment with cheap and abundant access to alcohol. It is no coincidence that college students drink more than same-age peers not attending college. College traditions are steeped in alcohol, and in the old school song of almost any college you will find boasts about alcohol consumption.

The community issues raised by heavy drinking have led to the development of certain benchmarks that are indicative of larger problems. One such benchmark is that of binge drinking, which we define as five drinks in a row for men and four in a row for women--the "5/4" measure. This is not to say that every student who drinks at or above this level has a serious drinking problem and is in need of medical treatment. Instead, the reason we use this definition is that when we analyze the data--responses from more than 45,000 students over ten years--we find that it predicts other problems.

The more binge drinking occurs at a school, the more alcohol-related problems can be expected: problems with injuries, academic performance, violence and sexual abuse, among others. People who binge more than once a week constitute almost one-fourth of all students, yet they account for more than three-fifths of serious alcohol-related incidents on campuses and consume almost three-quarters of all the alcohol that college students drink.

Some higher-education groups have argued that we should get rid of the term "binge drinking." The Inter-Association Task Force on Alcohol and Other Substance Abuse Issues, founded by the oddly named BACCHUS (Boosting Alcohol Consciousness Concerning the Health of University Students) of the U.S. Inc., asked its 21 member organizations to pass resolutions seeking the removal of "binge" from media coverage of college drinking.

However, the 5/4 measure has been widely recognized by public health professionals. The Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute on Drug Abuse all apply a five-drink standard.

The BACCHUS and GAMMA Peer Education Network, a Task Force member, is among those leading the charge; interestingly, representatives of Miller Brewing Company, Anheuser-Busch Companies and Coors Brewing Company serve on the Network's board of trustees. The alcohol industry is profit-motivated, and it may have its own reasons for wanting to discredit the term "binge drinking" and the years of research conducted by leading academic and governmental research organizations.

Using this standard allows for the more accurate assessment of drinking on campus. The Crimson staff found that about the same proportion (45 percent) of Harvard students binge drink as the national average, but that only one quarter of these students are frequent binge drinkers--half of the national average.

Although this difference may be real, a note of caution is advised before uncorking the champagne: The timing of the Harvard survey may have influenced the results. Students were interviewed during reading period, a time when there may be less drinking in general and when heavier-drinking students less concerned about their coursework may have been away from school. Furthermore, the Harvard survey was completed in 2001, almost two full years after the national sample. Drinking rates may have changed everywhere since then.

Nevertheless, The Crimson has made an important contribution by bringing the issues of alcohol use and abuse at Harvard into the public forum for open discussion.

Henry Wechsler is a lecturer at the School of Public Health and the principal investigator of the College Alcohol Study. Statistics for the study may be found at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas.