Thursday, June 16, 2005

Researchers plan recruit about 250 ECU freshmen annually and study their drinking habits over the next five years.

Research Triangle Institute International, a nonprofit research group in the Raleigh-Durham area, announced Tuesday it would use a $2.1 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse to study heavy drinking among college students. The institute is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Researchers plan to conduct motivational interviews and track of 1,000 students' alcohol consumption in hopes the students will recognize their behavior and modify it.

"They're leaving the parental controls," Janice Brown, the study's leader, said of the students. "This may be the first time that they're really on their own. They may get caught up in the social aspect of drinking."

East Carolina University was selected, in part, because of its involvement in an alcohol task force sponsored by Gov. Mike Easley, Brown said.

"ECU was chosen because they were available and interested," Brown said. "It wasn't based on any identification of a high-risk campus. It was simply a campus that's concerned about their students."

Based on statistics, drinking by ECU students is average, said Brian McMillen, professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Brody School of Medicine and head project researcher at ECU.

"Although the students have a high image of themselves as a big party school, the reality of it is that they're merely average," McMillen said. "Unfortunately, that is too high a rate of drinking. A number of students put themselves in jeopardy or academic difficulties or disciplinary difficulties as a result of that alcohol consumption."

While many researchers think college students' drinking needs to be prevented, McMillen looks at it more as behavior modification.

"Most of the students who are here that drink were already drinking when they were seniors in high school," McMillen said. "The difference is they don't have to shape their drinking around the presence of their parents. Every year, your (college) seniors graduate and a new crop of high school students, who are already drinking, are coming in expecting to party."

It's pretty easy for students younger than 21, the legal drinking age, to get alcohol, McMillen said.

"A lot of it is acquired through friends who are 21, and the kids learn real quick which clubs and which convenience marts are slack," McMillen said.

When the drinking age was raised to 21 in the mid-1980s, McMillen said, underage people started drinking more. McMillen noticed that, among students with whom he dealt in focus groups, 18-year-olds were excited about partying while those of legal age had a "been there, done that" attitude.

"You see this sort of change in attitudes as the students age," McMillen said.

Students for the study will be recruited in a fall health class that is required for all freshmen.

Researchers want to work with students who are considered heavy episodic drinkers. The students' participation will be kept confidential, McMillen said.

Heavy episodic drinking is defined for men as consuming five or more drinks on a single occasion at least once in the past two weeks and for women, four or more drinks in the same time period, Brown said. About 40 percent of college students are heavy episodic drinkers, and first-year students are especially at risk, she said.

The study is voluntary, and students' reasons for participating will vary, Brown said. Each student will be paid $100 for participating.

"Sometimes, it's for the money," Brown said. "Sometimes, it's just out of curiosity. Sometimes, they may wonder if they have a problem and they make look at this as a way of finding out. I doubt many of them will enroll in the study with the pure motivation to want to decrease their drinking."

But that's the idea, she said.

Students will be divided into four groups. The first group will just be assessed on their drinking habits; the second will be assessed and mailed feedback on their habits over the five years; the third will be assessed and will participate in a motivational interview; and the fourth will be assessed, take part in a motivational interview and provide feedback in person.

"The primary benefit, we hope, is a reduction in high-risk drinking," Brown said. "We don't expect that these students are not going to drink at all, but we do hope that the interview triggers responsibility and drinking in a more responsible manner."

The study will also investigate the impact of environmental factors, including alcohol policies, alcohol availability and peers' drinking patterns. Brown hopes presentations and articles written on the study's results will prompt universities across the country to examine students' drinking habits.

Drinking habits are a factor in some students' academic failure, and it would be in administrators' best interest to do something to try and curb the trend, McMillen said.

"For every 15 freshmen who drink their way out of ECU, (the school) loses a faculty position," McMillen said, referring to the money the university receives based on enrollment.

Kelly Soderlund can be

contacted at ksoderlund@

coxnews.com and 329-9568.