Human Services News

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Increases in young women's drinking during the transition from high school through the first year of college can have dangerous physical, sexual and psychological implications, according to a report out of the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions.

The good news is that during the first year of college, when many young women increase their drinking, the majority (78 percent) of the 870 incoming freshmen women who participated in the study did not experience any victimization.

The study showed that among women who drank alcohol during the first year of college, rates of physical and sexual victimization were substantially higher compared to women who did not drink.

Interestingly, researchers found that the changes in drinking patterns during the high-school-to-college transition influenced risk for physical and sexual victimization in different ways.

Being a new drinker during the first year of college (15 percent of the women) increased the likelihood of physical, but not sexual, victimization.

The researchers speculated that new drinkers' social and physical inexperience or lack of tolerance for alcohol and its effects may increase women's impairment when drinking and subsequently, their vulnerability to potential perpetrators or dangerous situations.

"Young women who had a history of physical victimization and greater psychological symptoms, and who began drinking during the first year at college had an increased likelihood of experiencing physical victimization," explained Parks.

According to Parks, "The significant predictors of sexual victimization were psychological symptoms during the first year at college, number of consensual sexual partners and increased drinking.

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