Drinking on campus - What do we know about reducing alcohol use among college students?

Drinking and related problems on the college campus have reached near epide mic levels. In order to address this trend, many colleges have launched alc ohol prevention and intervention programs for college students. Unfortunate ly, most such programs are either not empirically validated or are plainly based on models that have shown poor efficacy. This overview of the college treatment literature describes the kinds of interventions that have shown the best success and offers directions for future studies. In general, educ ational and abstinence-based approaches show the least efficacy, while othe r types of skills, attitudinal and feedback-based interventions based on as pects of the social learning model appear to be more successful. In additio n to employing those approaches that have shown empirical success, a reexam ination of the role that alcohol plays in the larger campus culture is cruc ial. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.