High Alcohol Levels Found Among Students Taken to ER Under Policy Encouraging Reporting.
National surveys continue to find a high prevalence of binge drinking on college campuses, and the Office of the Surgeon General has characterized high-risk drinking among college students as a major public health problem.
Now, a study in the journal Addiction Science & Clinical Practice, co-authored by a School of Public Health researcher, shows that almost all intoxicated students at Boston University who were transported to local emergency departments under a 2009 policy had alcohol levels greater than the criteria for binge drinking (.08 percent), and that 70 percent had dangerously high alcohol concentrations of at least twice that level.
Those findings suggest that after the policy was implemented, students taken to the ER “truly needed help, and might otherwise not have received it,” said co-author Richard Saitz, chair and professor of community health sciences.
“The fact that 20 percent of students had alcohol levels greater than 250 mg/dL (or .250 percent) underscores the toxic level of drinking behaviors among college students and subsequent potential for disastrous health consequences,” the authors wrote. Blood alcohol levels of 250 mg/dL and higher put people at risk of respiratory depression, coma and death.
While the authors acknowledge that the BU policy is not an “alcohol-prevention practice, per se,” they say that it may provide an important safety measure to reduce alcohol-related morbidity and mortality among college students.
“The level of drinking by students seen in the ER described in our study highlights the importance of campus policies that encourage the identification and referral for emergency medical evaluation of students who are dangerously intoxicated, in order to avoid dire health consequences,” Saitz said.
BU adopted a policy in 2009 that calls for University police to be notified when students on campus are identified with presumed alcohol intoxication, and then to summon EMS to transport them to the emergency room of Boston Medical Center (BMC) or another hospital.
The researchers studied blood and breath alcohol levels for 971 BU students who were transported between 2007 and 2011. The mean number of yearly transports two years prior to the 2009 policy was 131; it rose to 236 three years after the policy was put in place. Overall, transports have been decreasing since 2011, BU data show.
The mean alcohol level among the students transported and tested was .193, with nine percent of students having at least two repeat visits for alcohol intoxication within the study period. Ninety-five percent of those whose blood-alcohol levels were measured had a level of greater than .08. Students with levels above .250 were more likely to be male, older and have longer lengths of stay in the hospital.
Most students in the study had blood alcohol levels between .1 and .250, which the researchers said are associated with serious impairment and health risks such as nausea, vomiting, confusion, and problems with balance and movement. Nine students were hospitalized for trauma or other medical conditions, such as head injuries.
“Without the policy, some of these students would not have gotten medical attention, putting them at serious risk of harm or even death from alcohol poisoning,” Saitz said. “This suggests that the policy was a good idea.”
The study was led by Sigmund Kharasch, formerly of BMC and now with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Harvard Medical School. Co-authors were: Ward Myers, director of operations of pediatric emergency medicine at BMC and assistant professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the School of Medicine; and David McBride, formerly director of student health services at BU and now with the Division of Student Affairs, University of Maryland.