Students who feel more university connection may be more likely to binge drink
Penn State
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Students who feel a sense of belonging at their university are more likely to binge drink than those who do not feel the same connection, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State, the University of California, Santa Cruz and University of Oregon.
In the study, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, scientists — including researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development — found that college students with “good” mental health who felt connected to their university were more likely to binge drink than those who did not feel as connected to their university.
Stephane Lanza, professor of biobehavioral health and Edna P. Bennett Faculty Fellow in Prevention Research, studied the topic with Danny Rahal and Kristin Perry when both were postdoctoral trainees in the Penn State Prevention and Methodology Training Program. The researchers examined the ways that both positive and negative aspects of mental health can contribute to the risk of binge drinking, cannabis use and nicotine use.
“In 2021, students at many universities were returning to campus after the COVID-19 shutdown — and some students were attending in-person college classes for the first time,” said Rahal, lead author of this research and assistant professor of psychology at University of California Santa Cruz. “Data from that time indicated that many students felt disconnected from their school. Universities wanted to foster a sense of connectedness among their students for many good reasons, but we wanted to know if there was something positive — specifically a sense of belonging — that is related to substance use. Our study showed that feeling connected to one’s university is associated with higher rates of substance use.”
The researchers examined data from 4,018 university students collected during the 2022-23 school year. Participants answered questions about substance use, their sense of belonging at their school and their mental health — specifically about anxiety, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, flourishing in life and confidence in their academic success.
A statistical modeling technique called latent profile analysis allowed the researchers to simultaneously account for all these measures by combining them to identify five profiles of student mental health. In this study, a student was considered to have good mental health if they had lower levels of stress, depressive symptoms and anxiety, as well as higher flourishing and academic confidence than their peers.
The researchers found that students with average or good mental health were more likely to have engaged in binge drinking in the past month if they felt connected to their university than if they did not feel that connection.
The researchers said this does not mean that connectedness is bad for students to experience; rather, the results are nuanced.
“We want to cultivate connectedness among students,” said Perry, assistant professor of family and human services at University of Oregon. “Connectedness gets them involved. It can be a really powerful protective factor against negative mental health outcomes and can help keep students in school. But connectedness at school can go hand in hand with binge drinking if there is a culture of drinking at the school.”
Though the researchers said they expected these results about drinking, they were surprised to learn that students with poor mental health who felt connected to their university were more likely to use non-vaped tobacco products than students with poor mental health who did not feel connected to their university. The results around cannabis were less conclusive, but the researchers said the trend was clear.
“Generally, students who felt connected to their university were more likely to use substances than disconnected students with the same level of mental health,” Rahal said.
While a sense of belonging was related to substance use, it could also be part of the solution, according to the researchers.
“Cultivating belonging for all students is an important way that universities can embrace diversity and help all students thrive,” Lanza said.
Though drinking is common on university campuses, many students believe that it is far more common than it is, the researchers explained. In this dataset, slightly fewer than one-third of students reported binge drinking in the last month. Despite the fact that two-thirds of students had not engaged in binge drinking, the researchers also found that students believed a typical student consumed three to five drinks multiple times each week. The researchers said this disconnect between perception and reality points to an opportunity to change the culture — by creating ample opportunities for all students to socially engage and participate in alcohol-free environments — so that alcohol feels less central to student life.
Minoritized college students, in particular, often face messages that make them feel unwelcome based on their race, gender, socioeconomic status or other factors, according to the researchers.
“We cannot expect students to stay enrolled unless they are engaged with the campus community,” Lanza continued. “If universities lose students from a specific group, the campus becomes less diverse, and the entire university community becomes less rich. Additionally, when members of those groups leave school, they miss educational opportunities and the earning potential that comes with a college degree. By providing all students with diverse opportunities to build a real sense of belonging at their universities, we can improve campus life while putting people on the path to a healthier life.”
The National Institute on Drug Abuse and Penn State funded this research.
Journal
Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
Method of Research
Survey
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Mental Health Modulates Associations between Institutional Belonging and Substance Use Risk
U of M Medical School receives $2.5M grant to study the effect of pain on how people drink
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (10/10/2024) — The University of Minnesota Medical School recently received a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to study how pain influences drinking behavior.
This research aims to better understand how pain affects drinking in individuals, both with and without chronic temporomandibular disorder (TMD) pain. TMD is characterized by ongoing pain or discomfort in the jaw and the muscles that control jaw movement, making it difficult to chew and speak. Those with TMD often experience headaches and pain that can extend to the face, neck or ears.
Individuals with TMD pain are at elevated risk for alcohol-related health problems, including alcohol use disorder, and growing evidence suggests pain is a significant motivator for alcohol use in many individuals.
“It's common for people with chronic pain, including facial pain, to use alcohol to help manage their symptoms. Unfortunately, using alcohol for pain relief can actually make pain worse in the long run,” said Dr. Jeff Boissoneault, an associate professor at the U of M Medical School and director of the Minnesota Alcohol and Pain Lab. “By studying how pain affects the way that people drink both in the laboratory and in daily life, we hope to find new treatment targets to help people with pain avoid alcohol-related problems.”
Dr. Boissoneault and his team are currently preparing for participant enrollment, which is anticipated to begin in January 2025.
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About the University of Minnesota Medical School
The University of Minnesota Medical School is at the forefront of learning and discovery, transforming medical care and educating the next generation of physicians. Our graduates and faculty produce high-impact biomedical research and advance the practice of medicine. We acknowledge that the U of M Medical School is located on traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of the Dakota and the Ojibwe, and scores of other Indigenous people, and we affirm our commitment to tribal communities and their sovereignty as we seek to improve and strengthen our relations with tribal nations. For more information about the U of M Medical School, please visit med.umn.edu.
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