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Alcohol and Drug Use among CU-Boulder Undergraduates
Results of the College Alcohol Study Surveys

Background

Dr. Henry Wechsler at the Harvard School of Public Health has implemented a series of national surveys, as part of the College Alcohol Studies (CAS) Program, to assess the problems related to binge drinking on college campuses. His first survey was conducted in 1993 on 140 college campuses; 15,103 students participated. Since then over 14,000 students at 120 four-year colleges in 40 states have been surveyed in 1997, 1999 and 2001 as part of this ongoing study. The University of Colorado at Boulder participated in each of these national surveys.

In 1996, CU-Boulder was chosen as one of six colleges to receive a five-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation called A Matter of Degree (AMOD). The purpose of the grant during those five years was to identify and implement programs designed to change aspects of the campus and community environment that support or encourage high-risk drinking. The Standing Committee on Substance Abuse (SCOSA) and the office of Planning, Budget and Analysis (PBA) jointly led the grant efforts on campus and in the community; a half-time lead researcher from PBA was in charge of analysis and reporting during this period. As part of the AMOD grant, CU-Boulder students were also surveyed in 1998 and 2000. Although CU-Boulder was no longer a part of the grant after 2001, CU-Boulder students were included in the College Alcohol Study surveys in every year since then, except for 2003, and we continued, through 2005, to receive summary data from each survey administration from Harvard each fall. CU-Boulder also continues as one of the ten AMOD program participants, with an active campus-community coalition and a central alcohol resource website.

The College Alcohol Study survey was not administered in 2006. In 2007, CU-Boulder staff members in Student Affairs collaborated with faculty members in the psychology department to administer a modified version of the College Health Behaviors questionnaire (described below). This project was referred to as the "CU-Boulder Alcohol Survey." Unfortunately, student response to the survey was poor and the results were therefore not published.

In 2008, the Alcohol and Other Drugs Program at CU-Boulder administered a modified version of the original College Alcohol Study, initiating a new time series on alcohol use among students. Results from the 2008 survey (and from future alcohol surveys in this time series) will be reported separately from those provided in the earlier, Harvard summaries for the following reasons:

• The response rate for 2008 (24%) is considerably lower than those obtained when Harvard was administering the alcohol survey (47%-75%).
• All prior summary data were provided by Harvard and are weighted to adjust for demographic characteristics and differential sampling fractions across subgroups.

Methods

In 2001 and earlier years, the College Alcohol Study survey was administered completely by mail. Since 2004, the survey has been administered completely or partially via the Web. The Harvard School of Public Health's College Health Behaviors (CHB) questionnaire assesses such things as alcohol use, consequences of alcohol use, and a variety of demographic, academic, and social activity questions.

Originally, the 2004 College Health Behaviors survey was intended to be nationally representative, but this effort failed because institutions' response rates were too low. It is believed that the response rates suffered in 2004 because the method of administration was switched to a completely web-based platform. Because the response rate was substantially lower in 2004, the results were removed from the results over time table and reported in a separate table. In 2005, Harvard School of Public Health decided to administer the survey via both mail and Web, and the response rate improved to the level it was in 2001.

In these analyses "binge drinking" is defined as consuming 5 or more drinks in one sitting for men and 4 or more drinks in one sitting for women. For further information about binge drinking and College Alcohol Study findings on this topic, see the CAS FAQ page and past research from 1998 and 1999:

• Why the Binge Drinking levels are set where they are
• Blood alcohol content of binge drinkers

College Alcohol Study Main Page

Last revision 07/10/08