• Maadhanki R Kasimanickam, KerrDavid C RDCRCollege of Liberal Arts, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon., Rebecca E Killion, Timothy S Naimi, Marlene C Lira, and Harold Bae.
• College of Public Health and Human Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. Electronic address: kasimanm@oregonstate.edu.
• Am J Prev Med. 2024 Jan 1; 66 (1): 191-9.

IntroductionBinge drinking and sexual assault are serious inter-related public health problems faced by college students. State-level alcohol policy restrictiveness has been found to decrease binge drinking among college students and, therefore, may also reduce occurrences of alcohol-related criminal offenses. It was hypothesized that more restrictive state alcohol policy environments would be associated with fewer liquor law violations and sexual assault offenses on U.S. college campuses.MethodsData were aggregated across 3 academic years (2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019) and represented n=1,290 institutions. Zero-inflated negative binomial regression modeling was performed in 2022-2023 to evaluate associations of state-level young adult binge drinking and the Alcohol Policy Scale (APS) with the numbers of campus-level alcohol-related arrests, alcohol-related disciplinary actions, rape offenses, and fondling offenses reported in national Campus Safety and Security data.ResultsHigher APS scores had direct associations with fewer alcohol-related arrests (1.79% decrease per one-unit increase in APS, p=0.05), alcohol-related disciplinary actions (2.27% decrease per one-unit increase in APS, p=0.027), and rape offenses (0.85% decrease per one-unit increase in APS, p=0.021). The associations APS scores had with disciplinary actions and rape offenses were partially and fully mediated, respectively, by state-level young adult binge drinking. No associations were found between APS and fondling offenses.ConclusionsThis cross-sectional study presents evidence that more restrictive state alcohol policies are associated with fewer alcohol-related arrests and disciplinary actions, and rape offenses on college campuses. Future research should identify the alcohol policy domains that are most protective against these outcomes.Copyright © 2023 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

23 keywords...

hide…