Heavy-drinking colleges showing no im...( U.S. colleges with the biggest stude...),Health

U.S. colleges with the biggest student drinking problems have so far failed to turn the tide, according to a new study.

The research, published in the September issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, found that at 18 heavy-drinking U.S. campuses, students' alcohol habits showed little change over a dozen years. In 1993, 58 percent of students reported binge drinking in the past two weeks; in 2005, 56 percent said the same. And although 28 percent of students in 1993 said they frequently binged, that figure was 32 percent in 2005.

The study did not look at what, if any, measures the colleges had taken to combat student drinking. But whatever they might have done has apparently not been enough, according to lead researcher Toben F. Nelson, Sc.D., an assistant professor of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

"Clearly the work is not over," says Nelson, "because what has been done so far has not put a dent in the problem."

For their study, Nelson and his colleagues focused on 18 U.S. colleges that had, in a 1993 survey, shown particularly acute drinking problems. More than half of students surveyed at each school reported a recent drinking binge -- defined as at least four or five drinks in a row.

Students at those same schools were surveyed several more times through 2005.

Nelson's team found that along with the persistently high levels of binge drinking, schools showed little change in the number of students who reported any drinking: 88.5 percent in 1993, and 86 percent in 2005.

Nor was there progress in the behaviors that often go hand-in-hand with problem drinking, like physical injuries, unprotected sex and drunk driving. In 1993, 37 percent of students said they had driven after drinking, and in 2005, the figure was the same -- although that marked a decline from a high of 43 percent in 1997.

Yet, Nelson pointed to recomm
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