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High-Risk Drinking Among Female College Drinkers at Two Reporting Intervals: Comparing Spring Break to the 30 Days Prior

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Abstract

Alcohol use has increased among college women in the past decade, and although event-specific high-risk drinking is common among college students, few studies have focused on Spring Break-specific high-risk drinking and other risk behaviors among female college drinkers. As such, we compared substance use (e.g., alcohol and marijuana use) and engagement in other risk behaviors (e.g., riding with an impaired driver) in the 30 days prior (T1) and during Spring Break (T2) in a sample of 86 female college drinkers (mean age = 19.9, SD = 1.3, 18–23 years). Participants were recruited on a public beach during their Spring Break vacation and were administered a survey that included the TWEAK, a brief screener to identify alcohol use disorder (AUD) risk. Initial results indicated that heavy alcohol use, riding with an alcohol-impaired driver, and marijuana use were high during T1 and increased significantly during T2. The TWEAK results indicated that 78% of respondents were at high AUD risk, yet only 25% felt the need to reduce their alcohol consumption. OLS regression results indicated significant relationships between changes in engagement in risk behaviors at T2 as compared to T1 across a number of sample characteristics and TWEAK indicators (e.g., age at first drink; age at first sex). Implications for prevention programming targeting female college drinkers are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

Research and manuscript preparation were supported by a grant from the Mississippi State University Office of Research and Economic Development and by the Social Science Research Center. The authors gratefully acknowledge contributions made by research team members Lynn S. Burney, Anna Dufur, and Dana Harrick, and thank the respondents for their participation in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University, PO Box 5287, Mississippi State, MS, 39762, USA

    Kathleen Ragsdale

  2. Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), 201 Whitehead Hall, 2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11220, USA

    Jeremy R. Porter

  3. Department of Psychology, Smith College, 44 College Lane, Bass Hall, Northampton, MA, 01063, USA

    Byron L. Zamboanga

  4. Division of Arts and Sciences, Mississippi State University, 1000 Highway 19 North, Meridian, MS, 39307, USA

    Janet S. St. Lawrence

  5. Department of Anthropology, University of Alabama, 19 ten Hoor Hall, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA

    Rebecca Read-Wahidi

  6. Department of Management, Marketing, and Administrative Communication, Eastern Kentucky University, 521 Lancaster Avenue, BTC 011, Richmond, KY, 40475, USA

    Allyn White

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  1. Kathleen Ragsdale
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  2. Jeremy R. Porter
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Correspondence to Kathleen Ragsdale.

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Ragsdale, K., Porter, J.R., Zamboanga, B.L. et al. High-Risk Drinking Among Female College Drinkers at Two Reporting Intervals: Comparing Spring Break to the 30 Days Prior. Sex Res Soc Policy 9, 31–40 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-011-0071-0

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