For use after 11 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 20

Nov. 20, 1997 --No. 870

Binge drinking culture target of media project being launched at UNC-CH, Cornell with CSPI

CHAPEL HILL -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill today (Nov. 20) joined Cornell University and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in launching a first-of-its-kind research and advocacy communications project to reduce binge drinking among college students and improve the quality of life on college campuses.

The project, supported by a $570,000 grant from the Park Foundation of Ithaca, N.Y., will generate a hard-hitting, attention-grabbing, potentially humorous, highly visible and provocative media campaign reaching three classes of incoming first-year students on both campuses beginning in fall 1998. The pilot project aims to develop a model communications package of print and radio advertisements that can be used to combat binge drinking at traditional four-year universities and colleges across the nation.

Officials at both universities and the Washington, D.C.-based CSPI jointly announced plans and funding for the project today.

Working closely with students, faculty, administration, fraternities and sororities, as well as the Chapel Hill and Ithaca communities, the project will focus on changing student cultures that encourage and tolerate irresponsible alcohol consumption, officials said. The campaign will seek to inspire fundamental changes in the campus drinking environment and in students' attitudes toward quality-of-life issues.

“To win the war against college binge drinking, our students must become convinced that it's not in their best interests to drink solely to get drunk,” said UNC-CH Chancellor Michael Hooker. “To change a firmly fixed culture, we're going to have to win students over by reaching their hearts and minds. Carolina's participation in this exciting new project with CSPI and Cornell has the potential to do just that.”

Added Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings, “We are pleased to initiate this project with CSPI and UNC. We aim to change a student culture that supports heavy and dangerous alcohol consumption. We know the task is ambitious, and that we cannot expect to achieve 100 percent success; but there is no better time than now to expand our current efforts, build on the progress we have made and test a model program for the nation.”

The planned media campaigns will rely heavily on advice and information derived from students at the two campuses. George Hacker, director of CSPI's Alcohol Policies Project and project head, emphasized the importance of student involvement in development of the media campaign.

“Our messages won't preach to students; they will be student-generated and crafted,” Hacker said. “Unlike many previous campaigns that promote certain behaviors or discourage others, we plan a hard-hitting, funny, perhaps off-beat advertising blitz that will dwarf past attempts to stir student consciousness about binge drinking.”

The collaborative effort is, in part, a response to widespread, serious alcohol problems on U.S. college campuses. A 1996 national survey of 89,874 students on 171 campuses, led by Cheryl Presley and Philip Meilman of the Core Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, showed that 42 percent of students reported binge drinking -- five or more drinks in a row --during the past two weeks. About half of all male students and one-third of female students reported binging on alcohol. Twenty-eight percent of students reported binge drinking more than once in the previous two weeks, and almost 6 percent reported more than five binge drinking episodes during that time span.

(UNC-CH Student Health Service educators used the same Core Institute mail survey in spring 1996. Some 429 of 800 randomly selected students replied. Thirty-seven percent of UNC-CH's respondents reported binge drinking during the previous two weeks. Slightly more than half of the male respondents and a third of the female students reporting binging. Twenty-seven percent of students reported binge drinking more than once in the prior two weeks, and more than 6 percent reported more than five binge drinking episodes during the same period. UNC-CH is readministering the Core Institute survey. Results are expected next spring.)

The widely publicized recent tragic deaths from alcohol poisoning at two U.S. colleges represent only the most extreme consequences of heavy drinking among students, officials said. Core survey researchers have found that almost 60 percent of students reported hangovers, 47 percent reported nausea and vomiting and 32 percent reported driving under the influence without being arrested.

Goals of the new media project include empowering students to support formal and informal practices and policies on campus that enhance positive lifestyle choices and discourage alcohol-related behaviors that negatively affect overall campus well-being, officials said. Students, as well as the entire university community, will be encouraged to embrace new standards of group responsibility that reject the self-destructive and potentially dangerous excessive use of alcohol -- especially for first-year students, who are most likely to engage in unsafe drinking.

“There are two ways to approach the problem of alcohol abuse among young people today -- you can ignore it or you can do something about it,” said Mo Nathan, UNC-CH student body president. “Carolina has taken positive steps to change the culture of binge drinking, and we intend to stay in the forefront of tackling this thorny problem.”

Stephen R. Rockwell, Cornell's student trustee, agreed. “Colleges must re-examine the messages they send students about drinking,” he said. “Alcohol has become a central focus of the social life on campuses across the nation and here at Cornell. The CSPI project has a high likelihood of succeeding because of its plan to include students, faculty, administration and professionals.”

William Warren, Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity president at UNC-CH and a project participant, said, “The CSPI project focuses on two schools that are among the best in the nation in terms of academics and quality of life. The results could very well serve as a revolutionary model for the rest of the nation.”

UNC-CH and Cornell are leading academic and research institutions dedicated to creating a healthy living environment for students. Both have active and aggressive student and health services programs designed to reduce alcohol problems on campus. Their efforts to cut binge drinking among students have included holding fun alcohol-free social events, improving freshman orientation programs on alcohol issues, encouraging students to seek counseling for substance-abuse problems, promoting peer education programs and implementing other policies and programs aimed at reducing the pressure on students to drink.

CSPI, a nonprofit health-advocacy organization, focuses on nutrition, food safety and alcohol problems. It is supported by foundation grants and the 1 million subscribers to its Nutrition Action Healthletter. It does not accept industry or government funding. Since 1981, CSPI's Alcohol Policies Project has advocated policies to reduce the devastating health and social consequences of drinking. CSPI led efforts to win passage of the law requiring warning labels on alcoholic beverages and has halted several deceptive marketing campaigns for those products.

The Park Foundation is named for the late Roy H. Park, who had long-standing affiliations with both UNC-CH and Cornell. The foundation now provides substantial support for graduate fellowships at the UNC-CH School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Cornell's Graduate School of Management and has awarded grants to several other academic programs at both campuses..

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Contacts: George Hacker, CSPI and project head, 202-332-9110, ext. 338; UNC-CH, Mike McFarland, 919-962-2091 or 962-8593; Cornell, Linda Grace-Kobas, 607-255-4206. CSPI Internet address: http://www.cspinet.org