Binge
drinking by University of Iowa(UI) students is substantially in
excess of consumption levels reported by most other investigators
studying non-treatment populations of college drinkers. Not surprisingly,
these heavy drinking rates at the University of Iowa were associated
with very high levels of adverse consequences. As well, the very
substantial differences in quantity and frequency of drinking between
males and females in the Iowa sample, by a ratio of about three
to one, contrasts with both the more modest differences in consumption
rates between young men and women of college age in other populations
(NIAAA, 1997; Presley, Meilman, & Cashin, 1996; Wechsler et
al., 1999) and the much smaller difference in binge drinking rates
between men and women in the Iowa sample. About 70 percent of the
Iowa student sample met criteria for binge drinking, whereas almost
47 percent met criteria for frequent binge drinking.
Binge
Drinking at Grinnell College
Grinnell College (GC) is a very small, highly selective private
liberal arts college located in Grinnell, Iowa, a small town located
about 65 miles west of Iowa City. Like the UI, GC occupies a residential
campus located in the North Central region of the U.S. Unlike the
UI, it is small and its students, drawn from a national sample,
tend to have had exemplary high school academic records. In view
of these substantial differences between the UI and GC in both institutional
and individual student characteristics, we gathered data on binge
drinking at GC during the spring of 2000 for comparative purposes.
Ninety-three GC students were assessed. They differed significantly
from UI students in current binge drinking rates: compared to Wechsler’s
national data on binge drinking (1994, 1997, 2000), rates of binge
drinking by GC students (33%) fell into the light to moderate range.
