A report from Science Daily suggests that Early Intervention May Curb Dangerous College Drinking. Michael J. Cleveland, research associate at the Prevention Research Center, in a study supported by The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, reported in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors that “approximately 8 percent of incoming freshmen were heavy drinkers the summer before starting college.” When the researchers surveyed the same student population during the Fall semester, they found that the percentage of heavy drinkers had risen to 28 percent.

Cleveland found that early intervention, which included parent-based intervention and peer-based intervention, students who were “non-drinkers before starting college, and who received the parent-based intervention, were unlikely to escalate to heavy drinking. And that “students who were heavy drinkers during the summer before college were more likely to transition out of that group if they received either parent-based intervention or peer-based intervention.”

Curiously, the study also found that a heavy-drinker receiving both types of intervention received no enhanced effect in curbing his or her drinking patterns.