I am wondering if a similar situation obtains in other nations.
Austin Kerr
[log in to unmask]

Alcohol abuse has emerged as one of the biggest social problems on
college campuses in the 1990s. Rape, assaults, property damage - all
are part of the numbing toll drinking contributes to.
    But the question persists: How many students actually die due to
alcohol abuse?
    Now a confidential new study begins to answer that question for the
first time - and the results may accelerate sobriety measures on
campuses across the country.
    The internal report, done by an arm of the US Department of
Education (DOE), identifies 84 student deaths in alcohol-related
circumstances at colleges and universities nationwide since 1996.
While this statistic is alarming enough, many college officials and
even the study's authors say it vastly underplays the scope of the
problem.
    ``This information at best provides a baseline ... and is
undoubtedly a far underestimate of the actual number of such deaths,''
says the study by DOE's Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other
Drug Prevention (HEC) in Newton, Mass.
    Despite its limitations, the report is the first attempt by an
organization to report the national dimensions of the tragedy - and
gather the number of alcohol-related deaths at individual schools.
``For me the real story is, why isn't anyone reporting this data?''
says William DeJong, director of the HEC.
    Alcohol-related crimes must be reported by law. Yet there is no
federal requirement to report drinking-related student deaths. So
there is no comprehensive source for national data. Instead, the HEC
report was compiled by patching together information by e-mail,
numbers from other researchers, and news reports.
    Without comprehensive statistics, analysts like Dr. DeJong say it's
hard to know whether anti-alcohol policies are working. Some campuses
are rigorously trying to curb abuse, while others are not.
    Binge drinking
    About 42 percent of students ``binge'' regularly - drink to get
drunk, according to a 1997 Harvard School of Public Health study. Yet
spending on programs to stem abuse remains relatively low. Four-year
colleges in the United States earmark on average about $13,179 per
year each (not including salaries), according to a 1997 survey of 330
schools.
    Earlier this month, however, 113 colleges and universities did band
together to launch a high-profile advertising campaign.
    ``Higher education needs to take the alcohol-abuse issue more
seriously,'' says David Anderson, associate professor of education at
George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who conducted the survey.
``We have to make a reasonable and diligent effort, and I don't think
most campuses are doing that.''
    Dr. Anderson's study found that two-thirds of all property damage,
64 percent of violent behavior, 42 percent of physical injury, 37
percent of emotional difficulty, and 38 percent of poor academic
performance could be attributed to alcohol abuse.
    Require reporting?
    To get more comprehensive numbers would mean requiring the nation's
4,000 higher-education institutions to report death and injury
statistics - something at least some administrators believe would be
invaluable.
    ``We need [the data collected] ... so we know whether our policies
are working,'' says Stanley Koplik, chancellor of the Massachusetts
Board of Higher Education, which voted two years ago to ban alcohol on
29 campuses in the Bay State.
    Others, however, say that reporting alcohol-related deaths might be
impossible since it's often difficult to pinpoint causes. Many, too,
see it as burdensome. ``Any student death is a tragedy,'' says Terry
Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, a
Washington-based college lobbying group. ``But it doesn't necessarily
follow that the best way to prevent future tragedies is to impose ...
reporting requirements. Often it's better to emphasize education.''
    Yet schools are also reluctant to report the depth of
drinking-related problems for another reason: Its impact on their
image.
    ``We had people e-mailing us who said, 'I'm letting you know about
this [student-alcohol death], but for heaven's sake don't tell anyone
I did it because the administration is trying to keep it quiet,' ``
DeJong says.
    News accounts of alcohol-related deaths are usually reported as
isolated incidents. So it's often difficult to get a comprehensive -
and consistent - picture.
    A recent national newspaper report on the drinking culture at the
University of Virginia in Charlottesville, for instance, cited three
deaths in recent years. The DOE report, however, makes a small
notation next to the name of a fourth-year student at the school who
died in November 1997 after falling down a flight of stairs while
drunk.
    The notation reads: ``17 since 1990,'' indicating that someone at
the university informed HEC that 17 UVA students had died in
alcohol-related circumstances since 1990. Still, the HEC report
officially listed only one.
    James Turner, director of UVA's department of student health,
confirms that 17 is the school's ``best estimate'' of the number of
alcohol-related deaths since 1989.
    ``We've averaged one to two alcohol-related deaths every year for
the last 10 years,'' he says. ``It's a significant number.''
    One mother whose child died in an alcohol-related circumstance at
UVA sympathizes with the school's efforts to fight its ``alcohol
culture.''
    ``The university is fighting [alcohol abuse] the best it can,''
says the woman, who requested anonymity. ``Still, if someone had told
me that every year or so someone dies on campus, I would have had to
think twice before I sent my [child] there.''

    (c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society