The Most of Us campaign focuses on three areas. All of these statistics were compiled from the Wellness Survey that the WRC conducted November 2007 to a randomly selected sample of 5,000 MU students (N = 1,296).

Most of Us Make healthy Choices:
97.3% have eaten before and/or during drinking
91.3% have chosen beverages with alcohol contents they knew
66.1% have avoided mixing different types of alcohol
62.7% have chosen not to drink alcohol at a party
57.4% have alternated non-alcoholic drinks with alcohol
90.4% of MU students are not regular smokers

Most of Us Make Smart Choices:
77% of MU students chose not to drink if they had academic obligations the next day
74% have not done poorly on a test/project due to drinking
63% of MU students do not drink alcohol Sunday through Thursday
87% become less interested in a person if they get drunk

Most of Us Make Safe Choices:
94.3% only drank in environments where they knew they would be safe
91.6% have used a designated driver who has consumed no alcohol
91.0% let their friends know where they were going
80.0% have refused a ride or never been with an intoxicated driver
95.0% have kept their drinks in their possession at all times
95.2% have traveled in groups
74.2% have counted their drinks

Most of US MU enjoy...
Hanging out with friends (88%)
Spending time with family (83%)
Watching movies (61%)
Listening to music (68%)
Playing sports/working out (68%)
More than partying with alcohol

Most of Us feel that…
friends (75%)
people (45%),
music (64%),
atmosphere (66%)
and dancing (40%)
made a bar or a party more fun than the alcohol!!!

 

You have probably seen statistics on posters, t-shirts, etc. around campus and have wondered, “Where are these number from? Who takes these surveys?” Below, we provide information about the two surveys the statistics come from.

The Core Alcohol and Drug Survey

The Instrument
The Core Alcohol and Drug Survey is an established measurement that the Wellness Resource Center has used since 1990. This survey has been created by a committee of collaborating universities and colleges and is widely used. Questions on the survey assess alcohol and drug usage as well as common negative consequences of usage among students. For more information about this survey, visit the Core Institute (at the Southern Illinois University) website: http://www.siu.edu/~coreinst/

Our Sample
Annually, representatives from the Wellness Resource Center visit randomly selected classrooms on the MU campus to collect survey responses for the Core survey. We believe this gives an equal chance for any MU student to participate in our survey and thus give us as random a sample we could get.
Each year, we obtain a sample of at least 5% of the student body. In 2006, there were 1,603 students who participated in the survey. We believe that our sample adequately represents the university student body. Below is the demographic information of our sample from the 2005-2006 school year.

Sample Demographics from the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey, 2006

Gender	Male Female	48.2% 51.8%
Ethnicity/Race	Caucasian African American Asian Hispanic American Indian Other	90.0% 4.1% 2.3% 1.2% 0.8% 1.7%
Class	Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior	23.2% 22.9% 25.5% 26.9%
Age	Under 21 Over 21	58.4% 41.6%
Fraternity or sorority member?	Yes No	21.5% 78.5%

The Wellness Survey

The Instrument
The Wellness Survey is a constantly evolving survey that was first implemented in 2003. This survey was created to supplement the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey. The questions on this survey assess how students spend their free time and a variety of questions about students’ use of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and about gambling behavior. These questions give us important information about MU students that we do not get from the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey.

Our Sample
We pick a random sample of students from a list provided by the registrar and invite these students to participate in our on-line survey. Of course, not everyone who is invited participates, and our sample size is smaller (N=1,569 in fall 2006) than that of the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey.

Sample Demographics from the Wellness Survey, 2006

Gender	Male Female	46.9% 53.1%
Class	Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior Fifth year	0.4% 25.5% 30.8% 31.0% 12.3%
Fraternity or sorority member?	Yes No	21.9% 78.1%

Who do these statistics apply to?

You can see from the table above that there are many more female students than male students who took the survey. Noting this, you may wonder if the statistics we present in our campaign really represent women, rather than men. We wondered this, too, and compared some statistics for women and men separately, to see if they varied dramatically.

Question: What do you value?

	Women	Men	Weighted Average	Un-weighted Average
Family Friends Education Success Faith Career Money Appearance Partying	98.1% 92.8% 69.1% 62.6% 51.2% 38.6% 28.0% 23.9% 10.6%	91.1% 89.4% 55.7% 63.4% 47.2% 43.8% 32.8% 19.1% 20.0%	95.4% 91.4% 64.2% 62.9% 48.2% 40.5% 29.7% 22.2% 14.0%	94.6% 91.1% 62.4% 63.0% 49.2% 41.2% 30.4% 21.5% 15.3%

As you can see above, there are some differences between men and women in what students value. However, because we’re presenting statistics for both women and men combined, the differences are basically averaged together so that the numbers you see (in the Weighted average column) are between women and men’s percentages. The un-weighted average column lists percentages had we hypothetically sampled equal number of men and women in the survey.

The most important point we’d like to remind you is that the weighted averages and un-weighted averages are very similar across the various values and the rank-ordering of the values is generally the same for all 4 columns.

Question: What is your idea of a fun way to spend your free time?

	Women	Men	Weighted Average	Un-weighted Average
Watch a movie Spend time with friends without alcohol Play or listen to music without alcohol or drugs Play sports or work out without alcohol or drugs Go shopping Go to a party with alcohol	92.3% 88.2% 81.6% 63.8% 82.1% 52.7%	85.1% 80.9% 81.3% 80.9% 21.7% 54.9%	89.3% 85.5% 81.5% 69.8% 60.3% 53.5%	88.7% 84.6% 81.5% 72.4% 51.9% 53.8%

Again, there are some gender differences for preference in leisure activities. Most notably, there is a big difference in women and men in their preference for going shopping. The un-weighted average for going shopping is lower than the weighted average for going shopping. This average is also slightly lower than the un-weighted average for going to a party with alcohol.

Overall, though, the average for going to a party with alcohol is lower than most of the other activities listed, still supporting our point that students prefer to spend their free time in ways other than going to a party with alcohol.

Our “Most of Us” campaign is a social norming part of our harm-reduction approach to alcohol, drug and tobacco use among MU college students.

We know that most students will drink about as much as they perceive their peers drink. However, we know that most MU students often overestimate how much they drink. So, we believe that social norms is an approach that accurately breaks down perceptions among students.

“This [social norms] theory holds that if students perceive something to be the norm, they tend to alter their behavior to fit that norm, even if it isn't reality. If, however, they are presented with the actual norm, they will conform to it. So if students think heavy drinking is normal they'll drink more. If they think responsible drinking is normal, they'll drink more responsibly.”

-Michael Haines, Social Norms Resource Center Director

It is our desire at the Wellness Resource Center to see students make healthy, safe and smart decisions. We hope sharing the truth of actual campus behavior will help our students make decisions that are healthy, safe and smart.

What is the purpose of social norming?

Social norm theory states that individuals are highly influenced by what they think their peers are doing or thinking. The theory also states that students typically overestimate problem behavior, such as high risk alcohol consumption, and underestimate healthy behavior. The theory predicts these misperceptions increase problem behaviors and decrease healthy behaviors, because students are acting in accordance to what they think is "normal". Social norm theory predicts that correcting misperceptions of the norm is likely to result in decreased problem behavior and an increase in healthy behavior.

Studies on our campus have shown that our students tend to overestimate how much and how often other students drink. One recent example is that students feel that 60% of their peers drink three times a week or more. The reality is that only 33% drink that often. That misperception is nearly twice that of the real statistic. The Wellness Resource Center is trying to share the accurate picture of student alcohol consumption at Mizzou, with the expectation that doing so (combined with our comprehensive approach) will result in a larger number of students drinking moderately or abstaining, and a smaller number of students making high risk choices. This type of strategy, when implemented appropriately, has been successful at a number of colleges and universities across the country.

For a more detailed discussion of social norms theory and the research associated with it, visit the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Issues website at: http://www.edc.org/hec/socialnorms/theory.html, The Report on Social Norms at http://www.socialnormslink.com, or the National Social Norms Resource Center at http://www.socialnorm.org.

Where do the numbers for the campaign come from?

Each spring, for the last 14 years, the Wellness Resource Center has administered the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey to an average of 1200 students. A random sample of classes is selected and the surveys are administered in the classrooms with faculty permission. The most recent administration of the survey was in February 2004.

Won't the message make students who abstain feel pressured to start drinking?

Research on this issue has consistently shown that this does not happen. Rather, because those who abstain from alcohol fall within the 0-4 range, they report feeling less pressure to drink more.

I don't believe the message because these numbers seem too low. How can they be true, with all the parties and problems we hear about?

It's not surprising that many individuals are skeptical about this message. Virtually everyone has misperceptions about students alcohol use. The problems associated with alcohol are what are reported in the news. And when students come back from parties they talk about the fights, the vomit, the sex, the drunkenness, not about all the people who are drinking responsibly. Since we notice what is exciting or different or tragic, that's what we focus on, and that's what we talk about. When individuals in conversation glamorize and generalize high risk drinking (i.e. "everyone was so wasted at that party last night") then high risk drinking seems to be the norm. However, when people start to pay attention to what is really happening at parties, they begin to notice that it usually is only a small number of individuals who are drinking the largest amount of alcohol and causing the most problems.

What about the Harvard School of Public Health study?

The purpose of Dr. Wechsler’s study was to “determine whether schools that use social norms marketing campaigns experience reductions in students' heavy-drinking behaviors and to compare any observed changes with the experience of schools that do not use such programs." However, the method used to identify schools that implement social norming was methodologically unsound. The only criterion used to identify such programs was the response to one item on a survey sent to school administrators in 2001. This sole relevant question "asked whether or not each school had 'ever conducted a "social-norms" campaign to decrease alcohol use and related problems on campus'; and if it had, the time period during which the program was conducted." There are some obvious criticisms that can be made of a study that is based on such an ill-defined response category. First, and most significantly, no other survey data was collected about the extent or quality of these reported programs, and the authors themselves admit that they made no additional efforts, such as campus visits, "to determine the content, scope and duration" of them.
Social norming is not the silver bullet. It should be used as the Wellness Resource Center does as a part of a comprehensive approach to addressing alcohol abuse. Please visit our web site at http://wellness.missouri.edu for more information about our comprehensive program.

What can faculty and staff do?

There is a Native American saying that states…”It takes a village to raise a child”. This saying is quite appropriate with the issue of alcohol and other drug abuse among college students. All of us need to work together to create an environment that supports and encourages students to make good decisions about alcohol. Keeping students accountable, not making jokes about alcohol or condoning use is imperative. In addition it is important to help students who may be at risk for alcohol problems to know what resources are available. On the WRC web site there is a document entitled; “Guide to Helping Emotionally Distressed Students”.

For more information on the Wellness Resource Center’s social norming campaigns or to request posters, contact the Wellness Resource Center at 882-4634.