The key to combating binge drinking might lie beyond Duke’s campus.
Duke recently joined 13 other universities in a new collaborative information-sharing initiative that uses joint data to determine which programs are most effective in curbing dangerous drinking habits. The Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking is the first action of Dartmouth College’s National College Health Improvement Project. Founded in 2010, NCHIP uses a practical model to make recommendations and measure the progress of various strategies that strive to decrease binge drinking.
“The collaborative will build on existing efforts ongoing at each participating college or university,” said Justin Anderson, director of media relations at Dartmouth. “The collaborative will promote sharing across participants that includes data, outcomes, processes, approaches to change and contextual factors that may influence change.”
Anderson said about 40 percent of college students engage in binge drinking, which involves consuming five alcoholic drinks in two hours for men and four drinks in two hours for women. According to the the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, nearly 2,000 college students die each year from alcohol-related causes and approximately 600,000 are injured.
As part of the initiative, Duke will participate in face-to-face workshops every six months, with the first session set for June 29 to July 1 at Dartmouth. Participating universities will also attend monthly virtual meetings with experts. Results from the findings are expected to be published in July 2012.
Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said joining the project was part of the University’s continuing efforts to reduce alcohol abuse, noting that it was not a response to any specific event.
Duke’s alcohol policy has, for the most part, remained consistent over the past few years. Moneta added that Duke will maintain its alcohol amnesty policy, as defined in the health and safety intervention section of Duke’s undergraduate alcohol policy. The policy states that students who seek medical assistance for themselves or others will not undergo formal disciplinary action for alcohol-related violations as long as they have not broken other University rules.
“Our response to harmful drinking is ongoing, it’s persistent,” Moneta said. “[The Learning Collaborative] is not a quick fix—it’s not something focused on short-term problems.”
To address the existing culture of dangerous drinking, the University will work with NCHIP to make campus events “more celebratory and safer at the same time,” said Tom Szigethy, associate dean and director of the Duke Student Wellness Center. He cited the recent changes to the Last Day Of Classes celebration as an example of successful policy implementation.
“After the prevention strategies were put in place, students said they had the best LDOC ever,” Szigethy said. “You want… to not have behaviors that lead to hospitalization.”
Szigethy said though he cannot predict the results of joining the initiative, he hopes it will reduce risky drinking behaviors.
“I would not say it’s a move against drinking,” Szigethy said. “It’s a move against high-risk drinking.”
Moneta said hazardous drinking is not a Duke problem, but rather a universal college problem.
“There’s no dispute anywhere that every campus in America has some percentage of students that abuse alcohol,” Moneta said.
The idea for NCHIP came from President of Dartmouth College Jim Yong Kim. Kim sought to address binge drinking problems using collaborative learning practices, Anderson said.
“The problem [of binge drinking] is often thought of as intractable,” Anderson said. “We think approaching it from a new way—as a public health problem—will yield positive results. We have to try.”
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