World Health Organization Risk Drinking Levels Among Mandated College Students: Associations With Alcohol Use, Mental...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Addiction Medicine
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• The World Health Organization (WHO) risk drinking levels are established benchmarks for alcohol consumption.
• These levels are frequently used as endpoints in clinical trials to measure drinking reduction.
• Their utility among mandated student populations, who may benefit from reduced alcohol intake, requires further validation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To validate the World Health Organization (WHO) risk drinking levels in distinguishing alcohol-related outcomes, depressive symptoms, and academic performance among mandated college students.
• To compare two methods of defining risk: typical drinks per drinking day versus drinks per day.
• To examine gender differences in risk classification.

Main Methods:

• Utilized baseline data from three intervention trials involving 1,436 non-abstinent, mandated students.
• Generated sex-specific WHO risk levels and categorized them using dummy coding, with low risk as the reference group.
• Employed regression models to assess the association between WHO risk levels and outcomes like positive Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores, peak drinking, alcohol-related consequences, depressive symptoms, and grade point average.

Main Results:

• Defining risk by typical drinks per drinking day resulted in a more even distribution across risk categories compared to drinks per day, which predominantly classified students as low risk.
• A higher proportion of women than men were classified as very high risk under both definitions.
• Students classified as low risk significantly differed from those in moderate, high, and very high risk categories regarding AUDIT scores, peak drinking, and alcohol-related consequences.
• WHO risk levels did not effectively differentiate depressive symptoms.
• Observed inconsistent differences in grade point average across the different risk definitions.

Conclusions:

• The World Health Organization (WHO) risk drinking levels demonstrate efficacy in differentiating alcohol use patterns and consequences among mandated college students.
• These findings support the potential clinical utility of WHO risk levels for quantifying drinking reductions in this population.
• Further research may refine the application of these risk levels for specific student demographics and outcomes.