The results of the 2004 Student Health Survey, conducted by the Office of Health Promotion, show an overall decrease in the number of injuries to students due to their personal alcohol use. The anonymous survey, to which 2,536 University undergraduates responded, was administered in February of last year via e-mail, and showed a continued trend of fewer reported incidents of alcohol abuse among students.
One part of the survey asks students to anonymously answer whether or not they have engaged in dangerous alcohol- related activities in the past year, listing seventeen different negative consequences of one's own alcohol use.
"The list of negative consequences is kind of a gambit of the things that can happen," Social Norms Marketing Director Jennifer Bauerle said.
Negative consequences include everything from suffering from a hangover, to getting into a fight, to being taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.
Last year marks the third year that there has been a decline in reported alcohol abuse among students. Fifteen of these seventeen consequences either have remained unchanged, or have shown marked decline over the last three years. Paige Allen Hawkins, an educator from the Center for Alcohol and Substance Education, accredits this positive trend to the efforts of organizations within the University, such as the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Team and Student Athlete Mentors, as well as the student body as a whole.
"It takes a community-wide and campus-wide effort," Hawkins said.
Student Health Director James Turner said the decline in reported alcohol abuse shows that students make good use of information being provided to them by the various organizations around the University that deal with alcohol abuse.
"What this says is that college students are adults," Turner said. "I think that we need to have more faith in there ability to make informed decisions. If we give young people the right info regarding alcohol, they can be very responsible for their actions."
Of the two negative consequences in the survey that showed an increase -- damaging property and going to the hospital -- Turner said the 5 percent increase in trips to the emergency room can be looked at from a positive angle, as the increase might be attributed to the student body having a better understanding of University policy, and making more safety-minded decisions.
"We've dispelled a lot of the myths that surround using the emergency room," Turner said. "Students are learning that they can use the emergency room as a sanctuary and safety-net. We don't want students suffering unnecessarily because they think that they will get into trouble."
Bauerle also said she believes that the closely knit University community is conducive to peer-safety awareness, pointing to the finding within the survey that 88 percent of students intervene to stop drinking and driving.
"U.Va. students know how to take care of themselves and their friends," she said. "We have a lot of faith in our students."
Bauerle also said many students have a misconception about how much their peers abuse alcohol.
"While that does happen, it's not the norm," she said.
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