Students are known to drink a lot of alcohol, and excessive alcohol consumption during university seems to be ‘part of the deal’. However, it can have serious health consequences and cause social and societal problems. For example, blackouts, unsafe sexual behaviour, depression, anxiety, extra healthcare costs, study problems and study dropout.
Students mainly drink during social activities, and the social environment (offline and online) plays a significant role. The social drinking norm – how much students think their fellow students drink – is often overestimated, making students drink even more alcohol. An existing intervention, called IkPas (also known as Dry January, one month not drinking alcohol), raises awareness and reduces alcohol consumption in both the short and long term. However, it mainly focuses on the general population and does not consider the student context.
Information will be gathered about environmental factors (online and offline) that influence students’ alcohol consumption in co-creation with students. Adjustments to the IkPas intervention will then be made to better suit the social student context. The results will hopefully contribute to lowering social drinking norms and reducing excessive alcohol use among students.
