Group Funds Binge-Drinking Study

Robert DuRant, a pediatric researcher at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and an organizer of the new program, said the study focuses on changing campus environments to discourage binge drinking among students.

DuRant said he intends to create specific anti-drinking plans for different types of schools.

He then will study the plans' effectiveness by examining paired institutions, grouped based on similar characteristics.

One school will be randomly selected to test the new anti-drinking plans, and the other will be used for comparison, he said.

At the schools that test the plans, the study will establish a campus coalition and a community coalition.

After studying a school's existing efforts to stop binge drinking, the campus coalition will work to create new policies to stop harmful drinking practices.

One possible policy would require students to register parties with campus law enforcement officials so that police know the location and date of every campus party.

The community coalitions would work with the local police and businesses that sell alcohol. DuRant said community coalitions would encourage the police to do compliance checks on local businesses that serve alcohol to underage college students.

In the checks, an underaged person would try to purchase alcohol. If he is successful, the police would cite the server and owner of the business.

In the studies of Harvard University researcher, Henry Wechsler, 44 percent of students surveyed nationwide reported binge drinking in a two-week period. Binge drinking is defined as five drinks for men and four drinks for women in a short period of time. The percentage of college binge drinkers has remained constant for the past eight years.

Although his results imply that previous anti-drinking programs have not been effective, Wechsler indicates that improvement is possible.

"So far colleges have been trying mainly education," he said. "Alcohol is marketed to students in town. What we need is college-community coalitions."

Clemson University -- ranked second on the Princeton Review's list of party schools -- and South Carolina State University are two of 10 schools in that state that are being considered for the study.

Schools in North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia will also be considered.

Institutions such as UNC that already receive government funding for alcohol-related problems are excluded from the study.

But the study's results could help all schools develop effective anti-alcohol programs in the future.

DuRant said, "At the end we will put together a how-to manual of best practices for colleges -- things that appear to work."

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.