Strategies are needed to reduce the availability and promotion of alcohol on and around university campuses in New Zealand. Given the high prevalence of binge drinking in high school and its strong association with later binge drinking, strategies aimed at youth drinking are also a priority. In universities, high-risk drinkers should be identified and offered intervention early in their undergraduate careers.

Aims-The study examined relationships between alcohol control policies and adolescent alcohol use in 26 countries.Design-Cross-sectional analyses of alcohol policy ratings based on the Alcohol Policy Index (API), per capita consumption, and national adolescent survey data. Setting-Data are from 26 countries.Participants-Adolescents (15-17 years old) who participated in the 2003 ESPAD (European countries) or national secondary school surveys in Spain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.Measurements-Alcohol control policy ratings based on the API; prevalence of alcohol use, heavy drinking, and first drink by age 13 based on national secondary school surveys; per capita alcohol consumption for each country in 2003.Analysis-Correlational and linear regression analyses were conducted to examine relationships between alcohol control policy ratings and past-30-day prevalence of adolescent alcohol use, heavy drinking, and having first drink by age 13. Per capita consumption of alcohol was included as a covariate in regression analyses.Findings-More comprehensive API ratings and alcohol availability and advertising control ratings were inversely related to the past-30-day prevalence of alcohol use and prevalence rates for drinking 3-5 times and 6 or more times in the past 30 days. Alcohol advertising control was also inversely related to the prevalence of past-30-day heavy drinking and having first drink by age 13. Most of the relationships between API, alcohol availability and advertising control and drinking prevalence rates were attenuated and no longer statistically significant when controlling for per capita consumption in regression analyses, suggesting that alcohol use in the general population may confound or mediate observed relationships between alcohol control policies and youth alcohol consumption. Several of the inverse relationships remained statistically significant when controlling for per capita consumption.Conclusions-More comprehensive and stringent alcohol control policies, particularly policies affecting alcohol availability and marketing, are associated with lower prevalence and frequency of adolescent alcohol consumption and age of first alcohol use. The societal costs of alcohol consumption by youth and the burden of alcohol use on disease in general have prompted many countries to implement policies restricting alcohol availability in order to reduce consumption and related harm among young people [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Such regulatory policies include setting a minimum legal purchase or drinking age, restricting the types of alcoholic beverages sold in stores, restricting the density of stores selling alcoholic beverages in a given area, restricting the hours of business when alcohol can be sold, mandatory training of alcoholic beverage servers, and increasing the price of alcohol [4][5][6]. The aim of such policies is to increase the "full price" of alcohol for youth by increasing the resources necessary to obtain it or the potential costs for possessing or consuming it [4,5]. Alco...

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Findings of this study indicate differences in the extent to which college settings are associated with student drinking levels before, during and after related events, and may have implications for intervention strategies targeting different types of settings.

Purpose-To examine whether compliance with underage sales laws by licensed retail establishments is related to underage use of commercial and social alcohol sources, perceived ease of obtaining alcohol, and alcohol use.Methods-In 2005, alcohol purchase surveys were conducted at 403 off-premise licensed retail establishments in 43 Oregon school districts. A survey also was administered to 3,332 11th graders in the districts. Multi-level logistic regression analyses were used to examine relationships between the school district-level alcohol sales rate and students' use of commercial and social alcohol sources, perceived ease of obtaining alcohol, past-30-day alcohol use and heavy drinking.Results-The school district-level alcohol sales rate was positively related to students' use of commercial alcohol sources and perceived alcohol availability, but was not directly associated with use of social alcohol sources and drinking behaviors. Additional analyses indicated stronger associations between drinking behaviors and use of social alcohol sources relative to other predictors. These analyses also provided support for an indirect association between the school district-level alcohol sales rate and alcohol use behaviors.Conclusions-Compliance with underage alcohol sales laws by licensed retail establishments may affect underage alcohol use indirectly, through its effect on underage use of commercial alcohol sources and perceived ease of obtaining alcohol. However, use of social alcohol sources is more strongly related to underage drinking than use of commercial alcohol sources and perceived ease of obtaining alcohol. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Recognizing the potential influence of commercial availability of alcohol on underage drinking, many state alcohol regulatory and local law enforcement agencies now conduct decoy operations using minors or require responsible beverage service training. Each of these strategies is designed to increase compliance with underage sales laws and thereby reduce commercial alcohol availability to underage youth. However, little is known about the relationships between compliance with underage sales laws, the use of different alcohol sources by underage youth, the perceived ease of obtaining alcohol, and underage drinking. Keywords NIH Public AccessDent et al. [12] recently used survey data from a sample of 11 th graders in Oregon to address this question. A school district-level measure of commercial alcohol availability was created by aggregating student survey responses to questions about how often they obtained alc...

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Background Internet-based alcohol misuse prevention programs are now used by many universities. One popular 2- to 3-hour online course known as AlcoholEdu for College is typically required for all incoming freshmen and thus constitutes a campus-level strategy to reduce student alcohol misuse. Purpose This is the first multi-campus study to evaluate the effectiveness of an Internet-based alcohol misuse prevention course. Design RCT with 30 universities: 21 entered the study in Fall 2007, nine in Fall 2008. Fifteen were randomly assigned to receive the online course and the other 15 were assigned to the control condition. The course was implemented by intervention schools during the late summer and/or fall semester. Cross-sectional surveys of freshmen were conducted at each university, beginning prior to the intervention in Spring 2008/2009; post-intervention surveys were administered in Fall 2008/09 and Spring 2009/2010. Setting/participants Public and private universities of varying sizes across the U.S. Random samples of 200 freshmen per campus were invited to participate in online surveys for the evaluation. Overall survey response rates ranged from 44% to 48% (M ≈ 90 participants per campus). Intervention The online course includes five modules; the first four (Part I) are typically offered in the late summer before matriculation, and the fifth (Part II) in early fall. Course content includes defining a standard drink, physiologic effects of alcohol, the need to monitor blood alcohol level, social influences on alcohol use, alcohol laws, personalized normative feedback, and alcohol harm-reduction strategies. Students must pass an exam after Part I to advance to Part II. Main outcome measures Past-30-day alcohol use, average number of drinks per occasion, and binge drinking. Results Multilevel intent-to-treat analyses indicated significant reductions in the frequency of past-30-day alcohol use (beta = –0.64, p<0.05) and binge drinking (beta = –0.26, p<0.05) during the fall semester immediately after completion of the course. However, these effects did not persist when assessed in the spring semester. Post-hoc comparisons suggested stronger course effects on these outcomes at colleges with higher rates of student course completion. No course effects were observed for average number of drinks per occasion or prevalence of binge drinking, regardless of the campus course completion rate. Conclusions This study provides initial evidence that the Internet-based alcohol misuse prevention course has beneficial short-term effects on hazardous drinking behavior among first-year college students, which should be reinforced through effective environmental prevention strategies.

This study investigated relationships between local alcohol policies, enforcement, alcohol outlet density, adult alcohol use, and underage drinking in 50 California cities. Method: Eight local alcohol policies (e.g., conditional use permit, social host ordinance, window/billboard advertising) were rated for each city based on their comprehensiveness. Local alcohol enforcement was based on grants received from the California Alcoholic Beverage Control agency for enforcement of underage drinking laws. Outlet density was based on the number of on-and off-premise outlets per roadway mile. Level of adult alcohol use was ascertained from a survey of 8,553 adults and underage drinking (frequency of past-year alcohol use and heavy drinking) from surveys of 1,312 adolescents in 2009 and 2010. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted to examine the effects of policies, enforcement, and other community-level variables on adolescent drinking, controlling for youth demographic characteristics. Mediating effects of adolescents' perceived ease of obtaining alcohol, perceived enforcement, and perceived acceptability of alcohol use also were examined. Results: None of the eight local alcohol-policy ratings were associated with adolescent drinking. Funding for underage drinking enforcement activities was inversely related to frequency of past-year alcohol use, whereas outlet density and adult drinking were positively related to both past-year alcohol use and heavy drinking. These relationships were attenuated when controlling for perceived ease of obtaining alcohol, enforcement, and acceptability of alcohol use, providing evidence for mediation. Conclusions: Adolescent alcohol use and heavy drinking appear to be infl uenced by enforcement of underage drinking laws, alcohol outlet density, and adult alcohol use. These community-level infl uences may be at least partially mediated through adolescents' perceptions of alcohol availability, acceptability of alcohol use, and perceived likelihood of getting in trouble with local police.