University booze harms reduced ‘significantly’
Vandalism, theft, physical aggression, and unwanted sexual advances fell after alcohol reforms by the University of Otago, a new study has found.
Meanwhile, there was an increase in students ‘‘babysitting’’ drunk friends.
The findings suggest that reducing the availability and promotion of university alcohol can ‘‘substantially reduce’’ the health and social harms it produces, concluded the authors led by Dr Kypros Kypri, of the University of Newcastle in New South Wales.
The study compared the results of two surveys – one in 2004 and the other in 2014 – of Otago students, which asked nearly identical questions about drinking behaviour.
In that time period, there was little alcohol reform at the national level and efforts to reduce alcohol harms by the Dunedin City Council were concentrated in the central city rather than North Dunedin, where most first-year university students lived, Kypri said.
He and colleagues credited ‘‘a decade of concerted effort by university authorities to reduce antisocial behaviour and improve student safety’’.
Interventions included security and liaison services, a stricter code of conduct, challenges to liquor licence applications near campus, and a ban on alcohol advertising.
University officials once celebrated Otago’s party and booze culture, Kypri said in an interview, but had in recent years ‘‘de-emphasised’’ alcohol in favour of academic, cultural and sporting endeavours.
Student pub closures in North Dunedin were also a probable factor, given that other research shows that drinking in pubs is more likely to produce intoxication, especially among men, than other locations.
Efforts such as Campus Watch, a sometimes controversial pastoral care service for students, were useful, Kypri said.
There has been a marked decrease in risky behaviour among young people in anglophone countries and continental Europe in recent decades, he said.
This included less risky sex, and less drug and alcohol abuse.
While this change is not entirely understood, many researchers thought the internet and social media played a role.
Facebook launched in New Zealand in 2005-06.
The authors highlighted that students baby-sitting drunk friends had increased 11.3 per cent between 2004 and 2014.
It suggested ‘‘success in the [residential] colleges’ efforts to encourage students to look after each other when drinking’’.
Vandalism was down 5.2 per cent and theft down 6.5 per cent.
Physical aggression was down 4.8 per cent.
Sex that the students later regretted was down 1.1 per cent and sex the students were unhappy about at the time was down 2.1 per cent.
Unwanted sexual advances were down 4.6 per cent.
Two thirds of the 2014 survey respondents were female.
There were more women at the university in 2014 than 2004, and women were more likely to fill in the questionnaire.
This was likely to have ‘‘biased . . . the prevalence of alcohol-related harm downward to a small extent’’, the authors concluded.
While Kypri is now based in New South Wales, he studied at Otago early in his career and was awarded his PhD in injury epidemiology from Otago in 2003.
He had been critical of the university’s alcohol policies in the past but was moderating that now.
There was still much to be done.
An adjusted 43 per cent of 2014 survey respondents reported blackouts after drinking, and an adjusted 33 per cent reported vomiting.
The 2004 survey got 1662 responses and the 2014 survey 1941 responses.
The students lived in the university’s residential colleges in North Dunedin.
‘‘In this period of alcohol policy reform, alcohol-related harm, including the most serious outcomes, decreased substantially among college residents.’’