title: Measuring college student drinking: illustrating the feasibility of a composite drinking scale.
abstract: This study explored the feasibility of a Composite Drinking Scale (CDS) designed to capture fully the phenomenon of problem drinking among college students while allowing easy public understanding. A survey conducted at 32 four-year U.S. colleges included four consumption measures: 30-day frequency; average number of drinks per week; number of drinks usually consumed when partying; and greatest number of drinks in one sitting in the past two weeks. Responses were normalized and added to create a continuous distribution, which was then subdivided into quartiles (CDS/Q1-Q4). The CDS is an easily understood scoring system, but compared to the simplistic "binge drinking" measure, it captures a broader range of relative risks and more clearly establishes the quadratic relationship between consumption and alcohol-related problems. Development of the CDS will require further exploring the best set of questions to include, establishing U.S. norms for the general population, and then transforming those scores to a simple measurement yardstick whose meaning can be easily communicated to the public.
authors.affiliation: Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Jiun-Hau
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: DeJong
authors.forename: Shari Kessel
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.forename: Laura Gomberg
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Towvim
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012932:Social Facilitation; D012945:Social Values; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States