PULSE Drinking Survey

Drinking PULSE Survey Overview

The Drinking PULSE Survey aimed to gather information about students’ feedback on alcohol use and high-risk drinking behaviors, as well as the direct and indirect consequences of alcohol use. Results from the Spring 2019 administration of the survey reveal that:

• Prevalence of Alcohol Use
  • When asked how they would best describe their alcohol usage, the majority of students (70.3%) reported being either “light” or “moderate” drinkers.
  • 23.6% of the students indicated that they “never tried or don’t currently drink.”
• High-Risk Drinking
  • Overall, slightly more than half of the respondents (52.0%) reported engaging in high-risk drinking in the previous two weeks, with 19.2% being classified as frequent high-risk drinkers. 
  • Unlike previous years, women (50.1%) engaged in high-risk drinking at a greater rate than men (44.2%).
• Consequences of Alcohol Use
  • Top 3 Indirect consequences (resulting from other students’ drinking)
    • 65.9% had to “baby-sit” a student who drank too much
    • 56.3% had their studying or sleep interrupted during this academic year
    • 31.1% had been insulted or humiliated
  • Top 3 direct consequences (resulting from their own drinking)
    • 78.2% had a hangover/headache the morning after drinking 
    • 66.2% felt sick to their stomach or thrown up
    • 58.6% were unable to remember a part of the previous evening
• Bystander Intervention
  • The top motivating factor in determining whether to intervene in an uncomfortable drinking situation would be to prevent the situation from escalating, with 87.3% indicating “somewhat important” or “very important.” This was the most important factor in 2015 and 2017 as well
  • Slightly less than half of the students (46.2%) indicated that they didn’t have enough information to determine if it was concerning enough to intervene, and 38.9% of students indicated that they didn’t know the person well enough to intervene.

For more information, please visit the PULSE Archive Page to view or download the Drinking Survey.