A Systems View of Behavior:
Using High Risk and Population Approaches to Compliment Each Other

We understand drinking-related norms and behaviors result from interactions over time and space between many individual and environmental factors located at each level of the social continuum (individual, peer, school, community, and culture). Because environmental factors remain constant in the college environment, where the student population changes annually, the simultaneous implementation of both high risk programs that target individual determinants of drinking and population programs that target environmental determinants of drinking have greater potential to produce lasting changes.

The Prevention Paradox in College Student Alcohol Use
(after Rose, 1992)

Source: 1999 CAS

While the "risk" of being hurt is lower for students who usually consume 3 to 6 drinks, there are more of them. As a result, most of the students who report that they were hurt or injured as a result of their drinking are those who usually drink 3-6 drinks. The paradox is that while the risk of being hurt or injured is greater for the heaviest drinkers, they represent only a fraction of the total number hurt.

Actual Number Hurt or Injured by Usual Number of Drinks

Source: 1999 CAS