Excessive alcohol consumption among the American college students has been a topic of much concern, since it is believed that many youths are exposed to a lot of alcohol during their years in college. Recent studies on global alcohol consumption indicate that there is indeed a great geographical variation in terms of alcohol consumption. More than 40% of college students at the age of 17-30 in the United States often drink alcohol (Lorant et al., 2013). Excessive alcohol consumption has also been found to be a common practice even in many European countries, and university and college students are among the populations that are mostly affected by alcohol consumption. According to the research conducted by Cho (2014), almost every institution of higher learning in the US struggles with the issue of alcohol abuse among the students, these issues have been more prevalent among the students as compared to the general population. Hence, it is important to consider influential factors to excessive students’ drinking, so as to help come up with appropriate prevention measures.
The risks associated with excessive alcohol drinking are a major point of concern well deliberating on the issue of high alcohol drinking rates among college students in the US. Perceived risk is a major predicator when studying alcohol consumption among students because it determines whether a student will choose to drink or not. Most of the college students involved in binge drinking do not have perceived risks in excessive drinking, as studies indicate that most college students get involved in excessive drinking due to lack of accurate perceived risks on excessive drinking (Cho, 2014). Similarly, alcohol related attitudes of people surrounding the learning institutions also influence college students’ drinking. These related attitudes can influence the perceived risk among students and they may be perceived as cultural norms. Thus, alcohol consumption among the students is strongly influenced by perceived attitudes by the peers who are the fraternity or sorority membership or the community surrounding the colleges ( Weiten et el., 2014) .
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In addition to perceived risks, gender is also an influencing factor to excessive drinking among college students. Ideally, male students tend to be more involved in excessive drinking as compared to female students. However, recent studies feature that the opposite may be true. Considering the age difference, older students were found to have higher prevalence in excessive drinking. But, the effects of excessive consumption are similar to both genders. Both age and gender are major influencer of alcohol consumption among the college students.
The other determinant of excessive drinking amongst the college students is the socio-economic status. Similarly, socio-economic status has been a major determinant of healthy living. Low-income individuals are more exposed to health-risk practices, such as inability to acquire standard health care, eating foods of low quality or relatively high workloads. Students from low income families have been found to be at higher prevalence of alcohol drinking and thus, health risks among these students increase. Therefore, any excessive alcohol consumption measure should equally focus on students from low income families.
Physical environment is also another factor influencing students’ drinking rates in college. Drinking rates among the college students mainly depends on where the students live. Thus, there is a major relation between campus housing and alcohol consumption amongst the college students. Studies found that on-campus students are more likely to be involved in excessive drinking as compared to the other students’ groups.
Overly, alcohol consumption among the college students has been a major topic of discussion, given the dangers associated with unmitigated continuity of the practice. Novel information regarding college influences and excessive alcohol consumption among the college students have been discussed in detail. Cultural factors such as perceived risks and religious beliefs, personal factors (gender age, and family income rates) and among other factors such as temporal factors like marital status and year of study have been identified as the major influencers of college students’ drinking rates. Hence, there is need to develop prevention measures based on different factors so as to control excessive alcohol drinking by college students.
References
Cho, B. (2014). Factors Associated with College Students ’ Excessive Alcohol Consumption Within the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework : an Epidemiological Analysis . (May).
Lorant, V., Nicaise, P., Soto, V. E., & D’Hoore, W. (2013). Alcohol drinking among college students: college responsibility for personal troubles. BMC Public Health , 13 (1), 615. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-615
Weiten, W., Dunn, D. S., & Hammer, E. Y. (2014). Psychology applied to modern life: Adjustment in the 21st century . Cengage Learning.
