College gatherings that feature drinking games and themed parties result in higher levels of drinking and higher blood alcohol concentrations, according to a first of a kind, on-the-scene study of college drinking patterns. Young women tend to drink more at themed events than males, the study found.

Rather than ask students to report how much they drank at parties, researches for this study attended 66 college parties in southern California over a three semester period and observed 1,304 students. They gave the students self-administered questionnaires and recorded their blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) with a breathalyzer.

Predictors of Alcohol Involvement

"Most studies use survey methods that require people to recall their drinking behavior – days, weeks or months prior – and such recall is not always accurate," noted J.D. Clapp, corresponding author for the study, in a news release. "By going out into the field and doing observations and surveys, including breath tests for alcohol concentrations, we were able to mitigate many of the problems associated with recall of behavior and complex settings."

"In addition," said James A. Cranford, research assistant, "this study is unique in its focus on both individual- and environmental-level predictors of alcohol involvement. Rather than relying on students' reports of the environment, researchers actually gained access to college-student parties and made detailed observations about the characteristics of these parties."

Women Drank More at Themed Parties

"Both individual behavior and the environment matter when it comes to student-drinking behavior," said Clapp. "At the individual level, playing drinking games and having a history of binge drinking predicted higher BACs. At the environmental level, having a lot of intoxicated people at a party and themed events predicted higher BACs.

"One of the more interesting findings was that young women drank more heavily than males at themed events. It is rare to find any situation where women drink more than men, and these events tended to have sexualized themes and costumes."

"Conversely," said Cranford, "students who attended parties in order to socialize had lower levels of drinking. Interestingly, larger parties were associated with less drinking. Dr. Clapp and colleagues speculate that there may simply be less alcohol available at larger parties, and I suspect this may be the case."

College Party Hosts Warned

"From a methodological standpoint, our study illustrates that is possible and important to examine drinking behavior in real-world settings," said Clapp. "It is more difficult than doing web surveys and the like, but provides a much richer data set. Secondly, environmental factors are important. Much of the current research on drinking behavior focuses on individual characteristics and ignores contextual factors. Yet both are important to our understanding of drinking behavior and problems."

The authors urge caution on the part of party hosts as well as guests.

"Hosts should not allow drinking games and students should avoid playing them," he said. "Such games typically result in large amounts of alcohol being consumed very quickly - a dangerous combination."

The study, "Person and Environment Predictors of Blood Alcohol Concentrations: A Multi-Level Study of College Parties" was published in the January 2008 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Related Information:

• College Drinking, Drug Use Grows More Extreme
  
• Drinking Risky for College Women
  
• Binge Drinking Dangers

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