Researchers to Study Alcohol-Related Victimization of Women During Their Four-Year College Experience

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- In conjunction with the arrival of a new crop of freshmen on college campuses across the U.S., researchers at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions will begin a study of the alcohol-related victimization experienced by female college students.

The study will involve 1,000 co-eds who will be recruited by the researchers as freshman and who will be followed for their four-year college career.

Kathleen A. Parks, Ph.D., a behavioral psychologist and senior research scientist at RIA who is principal investigator, said the study will fill a significant gap in existing knowledge about this problem. The study is supported by a $1,844,750 grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Parks noted that college women are particularly vulnerable to alcohol-related victimization given the transition into college, increased drinking reported during college and the absence of parental influence or control.

Alcohol-related victimization, she noted, is defined as verbal, sexual or nonsexual physical aggression that a woman experiences associated with her own or another's alcohol consumption. The aggression can range from verbal abuse and threats, through rape or physical assault with a weapon.

Perpetrators of the victimization may include an intimate partner, friend, family member, a fellow student, acquaintance or a stranger. The impairment resulting from alcohol consumption may influence a woman's ability to avoid and defend herself from sexual aggression. Parks said some men may also perceive drinking women as more sexually available.

Parks said information on the rates of alcohol-related victimization on college campuses is limited. College women may not officially report incidents of victimization or their aftermath because they were drinking under the legal age at the time of the event. However, given their age and rates of alcohol consumption, college women are a population that is at high risk for violent victimization. Data from the National Crime Victims Survey indicate violent victimization is highest among women between the ages of 16 and 24 years. Data indicate that the majority -- 80 percent or more -- of college women drink alcohol.

Beginning with the fall 2004 semester, approximately 1,000 freshmen women will be surveyed over four years about their alcohol consumption and related victimization, as well as changes in drinking patterns and the consequences of victimization over time.

In the spring 2005 semester and every semester thereafter, a sub-sample of 250 women will be interviewed and trained in procedures for daily reporting of their alcohol use, mood, stress and victimization experiences. This information will be used to assess the daily relationship between alcohol consumption and related victimization (e.g., sexual or nonsexual, verbal or physical).

Women will use a touch-tone telephone system called the Interactive Voice Response System, to respond to questions about a specific day's events.

"We will look at changes in drinking patterns and risk factors such as psychological functioning and academic performance from semester to semester, as well as across the four years," Parks noted. "This will allow for assessment of changes in risk factors immediately following any victimization, as well as the influence on risk factors in subsequent semesters."

Both primary consequences of alcohol-related victimization, such as injury and trauma, and secondary consequences, including academic and psychological, will be assessed.

Women can experience anxiety, post-traumatic stress, depression and thoughts of or attempts at suicide as a result of victimization. Accurate information on alcohol-related victimization will assist in efforts to raise awareness of the problem among parents, students, campus officials and health and crisis service providers.

"Having this information will help with the development of intervention and prevention strategies," Parks added. "It will allow us to develop prevention programs that employ behavioral strategies for reducing risk, particularly for individuals who choose to drink."

Parks' co-investigators on the study are Clara M. Bradizza, Ph.D., senior research scientist at RIA and research assistant professor, Department of Psychiatry, UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Science, and William Fals-Stewart, Ph.D., RIA senior research scientist.

The Research Institute on Addictions has been a leader in the study of addictions since 1970 and a research center of the University at Buffalo since 1999.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York. UB's more than 27,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs.