Sarah C. Boyle

Is Prepartying a Cause of Heavy Drinking and Consequences Rather Than Just a Correlate? A Longitudinal Look at the Relationship Between Prepartying, Alcohol Approval, and Subsequent Drinking and Consequences

ABSTRACT Background: Prepartying, or drinking before an event where more alcohol may or may not be consumed, has been positioned in the literature as a behavior engaged in by heavy drinkers. However, recent findings suggest that prepartying may confer distinct risks, potentially causing students to become heavier drinkers over time. Objectives: The goals of this study were to disentangle the longitudinal relationships between prepartying, general and episodic alcohol consumption, and alcohol-related consequences by investigating (1) whether prepartying is associated with future consequences above and beyond current alcohol consumption habits and (2) whether augmentations in approval for alcohol and related increases in drinking mediate this relationship. Methods: One-hundred and ninety-five undergraduates completed online questionnaires at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months later. Results: Prepartying frequency was more strongly related to alcohol-related consequences one year later than was overall or episodic drinking. In addition, a path mediation model confirmed our hypothesis that this relationship is due to gradual increases in drinking which occur as a result of more approving attitudes toward alcohol brought on by exposure to prepartying. Conclusion/Importance: Findings suggest a new model for conceptualizing the relationship between prepartying, drinking, and consequences whereby students who get involved in prepartying may witness slow increases in their approval for alcohol use and, as a result, consumption. Importantly, results suggest that the increases in drinking displayed by prepartiers over the course of a year may account for the strong relationship between prepartying and later consequences. Prevention and intervention initiatives may benefit from directly targeting prepartying as a means of tempering risky alcohol use trajectories during one’s college tenure.

Do lesbians overestimate alcohol use norms? Exploring the potential utility of personalized normative feedback interventions to reduce high-risk drinking in Southern California lesbian communities

ABSTRACT This study examines the potential utility of social norms-based approaches to reduce heavy alcohol use in lesbian community settings. In a sample of 278 Southern Californian lesbians recruited from social media networks to complete an online survey, the majority of participants overestimated the quantity of alcohol consumed by their lesbian peers and more frequent lesbian bar attendance was associated with elevated perceptions of how much other lesbians drink. Greater than 90% of participants expressed interest in receiving personalized normative feedback, suggesting that culturally tailored personalized normative feedback interventions focused on correcting perceptions of heavy drinking may be successful in mitigating the alcohol-related risks of lesbians in Southern California, and potentially beyond.