Interrelationship of Place of Residence and Peer Influence on Drinking Behavior

Abstract

<p>Alcohol abuse on most college campuses continues to be a problem. Alcohol abuse disrupts both the residential and the academic environment, resulting in housing professionals struggling to find ways to lessen the negative impact of alcohol abuse by college students. Educational programs reflect a continuum of approaches, ranging from attempting to teach students to drink responsibly to strictly adhering to the legal drinking age of 21 . However, they all share the common goal of striving to change the alcohol culture among university students, including within student housing. Some institutions, spurred on by the recent research of Pasch, Lindsay, Barnes, Liechty, and Koschoreck (2000) among others indicating that students living in alcohol-free housing experience fewer effects of secondhand drinking than do those in other student housing, and are attempting to reconfigure their halls to accomplish this goal. The purpose of this study was to examine students' living environment, academic SUCCeSS variables data from a recent university-wide alcohol survey, and selected demographic variables to learn what variables contributed to student drinking behavior.</p>