Promoting a safe spring break

Spring break is just about here, and the UNT Substance Abuse Resource Center and Student Health and Wellness Center want to help every UNT student have an enjoyable, but safe, experience.

This week UNT's campus has been dotted by bright signs bearing messages reminding students of the dangers of mixing alcohol, drugs and sex. The signs also promote healthy behavior — from using sunscreen to designating sober drivers.

The March issue of Eagle's Health, the Student Health and Wellness Center newsletter, features articles on safe spring break practices, such as avoiding mixing alcohol and sun and proper care for tattoos and piercings. The newsletter can be downloaded from the center's web site at www.healthcenter.unt.edu/newsletter.htm.

Bharath Josiam, assistant professor of hospitality management, spent several years studying the behaviors of students on spring break. One element of his research included surveying students from more than 20 universities about their spring break habits. Another aspect involved polling students at one of the most popular spring break sites in America — Panama City Beach, Fla.

According to statistics, on a normal college campus about 8 percent of both male and female students binge drink one day a week. Josiam's research indicates that 91 percent of the males and 78 percent of the females go on daily drinking binges during a beachfront spring break. The accepted definition of a binge is drinking at least five alcoholic drinks at a sitting.

Students reported drinking continuously through the week, often to the point of illness.

Members of both sexes also reported more sexual interactions during one week of spring break than at any other week during the year. Josiam believes that these increased sexual interactions are a direct result of the high levels of alcohol consumption and "situational disinhibition" — in an environment where everyone is drinking continuously, many social constraints and inhibitions disappear.

"We all know these kinds of behaviors happen during spring break," Josiam says. "But the study is unique in that no one had actually gone out to do any quantifiable research on the topic."

He says the idea isn't that spring break should be abolished, but there is a need to raise awareness that the high levels of drinking and sexual promiscuity during spring break present public health hazards.

He is concerned with the dangers students face by binge drinking and their high risks of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and becoming pregnant as a result of inhibitions lowered by excessive alcohol consumption.

"Even more disconcerting," he says, "is that spring break has moved to venues outside of the United States like Mexico and the Caribbean where the drinking age is lower."

His research indicates that the age of students attending spring break events is also getting lower with increasing numbers of high school-age participants. Ages now go as low as 16 in potential environments where teens are not legally prohibited from joining the typical binge drinking.

Researchers in countries around the world have cited Josiam's research in studying similar behaviors in student gatherings like spring break.

For instance, researchers in Australia are studying the extent of the same behaviors of binge drinking during "Schoolies Week," that country's version of spring break. In Spain, the studies focus on the uninhibited behaviors of British youth who often take their beach vacations there.

Josiam says an interesting twist in his research is that he found African American college students tended to be more conservative and less inclined to binge drink during a spring break-like event. In his initial studies he found relatively few African American students taking part in the traditional spring break venues like Panama City Beach.

So Josiam also studied Freaknik, an African American version of spring break that takes place in Atlanta each year in April. During his initial study of Freaknik, he found that participating students were less likely to engage in binge drinking and unsafe sex.

Josiam has a bachelor's degree in commerce from the Delhi University in India; a master's degree in hotel, restaurant and travel administration from the University of Massachusetts; and a doctoral degree in business and marketing education from the University of Minnesota.

BY RUFUS COLEMAN rcoleman@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• UNT's first vice president for research and technology transfer named
• Regents assess new parking rates for 2003-04 school year
• North Texas Jazz Festival set April 4-6 in Addison
• The First Great UNT Cleanup
• Pohl talks to Faculty Senate about budget
• How the HIPAA privacy rule affects UNT researchers
• University, Honors, Alumni days in April
• Chicago will be talk of town at Academy Awards, film historian says
• Changes coming to UNT faculty election process

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