The School of Public Health is planning to start a center to study how to prevent alcohol-related problems among teenagers after receiving a $10 million grant from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, according to school officials.

The new SPH center, which will be officially called the Center to Prevent Alcohol-Related Problems Among Young People, will be the only one of the approximately 15 research centers the institute funds to focus exclusively on young people’s problems with alcohol, SPH Associate Dean of Research Ralph Hingson said.

“We think it’s important that we focus on that part of the population,” Center Director Jonathan Howland, who is the SPH’s Department of Social and Behavioral Science chairman.

Howland said the center’s focus will be much wider than just preventing alcoholism.

“The center is not necessarily about alcoholism,” Howland said, “but about the problems alcohol can create for young people who are not necessarily addicted.”

Drunk driving and academic issues will be targets of the center’s research, he said.

The center will include five research projects, according to Hingson, who leads the team responsible for writing the grant proposal.

One of the projects will research the impact of alcohol on academics, he said. The center will track the relationship between test scores and drinking “to the point of excess.”

Other projects include comparing drinking habits in Italian youth to see if similar drinking problems exist in a culture where drinking begins much earlier and drinking habits are taught in the home rather than by peers, Hingson said.

The grant was created partly in reaction to a growing national problem, Hingson said.

“There is a lot of new information that drinking in young people is an increasing problem,” he said. “For example, the national average when young people begin to drink has dropped dramatically.”

Hingson said the younger people first get drunk, the more likely they are to have unprotected sex, develop chemical dependencies and be involved in alcohol-related car accidents.

In the general population, about 40 percent of car accident fatalities are alcohol-related, Hingson said. The rate is closer to 50 percent among college students.

Howland said the center will primarily focus on research but will hold informational seminars for the public as well.

SPH was awarded the grant for the “scientific merit” of its proposal and the “enormity of the public health problem,” NIAAA’s Alcohol Research Centers Program Director Ernestine Vanderveen said.

Both Hingson and Howland said the center’s findings will help everyone.

Hingson stressed the importance of students in dealing with alcohol problems.

BU students had mixed reactions to the new center and how much of a problem alcoholism is on campus.

“I think the center will be very good,” College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Lucjan Zaborowski said. “I think alcohol use is a problem. BU is considered to have one the top night lives, even if we don’t have a campus or parties.”

But School of Management freshman Mark Kessler had a different opinion.

“I think if anything, [BU’s policy on alcohol use] is too restrictive. The security is ridiculous,” Kessler said. “It’s college – people are going to drink. [Security] makes it harder, which just makes it more dangerous.”