Universities searching for the best way to combat binge drinking among students are increasingly turning to a different kind of alcohol-education program: an online survey that provides sobering truth about students’ drinking habits.
Students at colleges that subscribe to the website service e-CHUG receive feedback about how much they actually drink in relation to their peers and if their level of drinking is risky, after filling out a 15-minute online questionnaire about their personal drinking habits, family history and the social environment at their schools.
Developers of the program, which started through a grant to the University of San Diego four years ago and recently launched a version for high schools, say the best way for students to learn about alcohol abuse is to provide them with personalized and – most importantly – anonymous information.
“We wanted some way that felt useful to talk with students about alcohol, not something that was just punitive or the standard educational stuff that everybody knows,” said e-CHUG Director Douglas Van Sickle.
More than 300 colleges and other organizations in the United States, Canada and Australia, including a few in the Boston area — Bentley College, Brandeis University, Framingham State College and Fitchburg State College — subscribe to the service. Colleges that subscribe pay a $745 annual fee. Boston University does not use the service, instead relying on its own surveys.
The online service has an advantage over traditional in-office or classroom education and treatment programs, said co-founder Scott Walters.
“This is kind of a dirty little secret of the alcohol treatment literature,” he said. “There is not a good relationship between the length of treatment and outcome.”
By evaluating students’ habits and putting them in the context of their peers, the website’s anonymous results makes the service attractive to students, Walters said.
“You don’t have to sit down and justify your drinking to someone else,” he said. “There’s no face saving, so you can just kind of take it or leave it on your own time.”
Bentley College administrators decided to integrate e-CHUG into their alcohol education program in 2005 because of its cost-effectiveness, said Jessica Greher, coordinator of Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Programs at the college.
“I think that [students] have been responsive [to e-CHUG], but some of the students are shocked, I think, by the feedback,” she said.
The service’s calorie feedback, for instance, translates the number of calories a student consumes in alcohol — usually beer — into its equivalent in cheeseburgers.
Jake Williams, director of Marketing Communications for Sigma Chi International, said the fraternity voluntarily signed up for the website because it helps members take personal responsibility and get an honest perspective on their alcohol usage.
“The success of e-CHUG is that it is for personal use and to promote honest responses,” he said.