title: Screening services for alcohol misuse and abuse at four-year colleges in the U.S.
abstract: We examine the prevalence of screening for student alcohol misuse/abuse among 333 U.S. colleges via a survey of campus leaders. We also use latent class modeling to identify classes of colleges based on screening practices. We found that most colleges conduct screening after a student is involved in an alcohol-related incident, and about 50% of colleges screen students at regular health care visits. Legal, health care, and housing staff are trained in screening at nearly all colleges; other key personnel were trained at about one third of colleges. We identified four classes of colleges: 62% of colleges fit in a class that had many screening components in place, 9% in a class with very limited services, and the remainder (29%) fit in 2 middle classes. Although most colleges had many alcohol misuse/abuse screening components in place, more than one third show need for improvement in how, where, and when screening is conducted.
authors.affiliation: University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, Minneapolis, MN 55454, USA. lenk@umn.edu
authors.forename: Kathleen M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Lenk
authors.forename: Darin J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Erickson
authors.forename: Ken C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Winters
authors.forename: Toben F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: Traci L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Toomey
mesh_terms: D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D003625:Data Collection; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D015233:Models, Statistical; D013333:Student Health Services / Q000379:methods*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D014481:United States; D014495:Universities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data