Drinking by college students is a well-publicized problem in Colorado. Legislative proposals this session for the tracking of beer keg sales, banning of open containers of alcohol in most vehicles, and tougher penalties for buying alcohol for minors all relate to the state's high-profile drinking-related deaths on college campuses last year.

To get at the degree and nature of alcohol and other health-related problems here at Metro, the Health Center is planning to survey 8,000 randomly selected Metro students by e-mail this semester. The on-line survey, which takes 20-30 minutes to complete, asks questions about their habits, behaviors and perceptions about various health-related topics, including alcohol, tobacco and other drug use. The primary goal of the survey is to enable the Health Center to better respond to the students' needs by collecting data on their lifestyles.

"The commuter nature of our campus gives us limited insights into the lifestyles of our students," says health educator Billi Mavromatis. "We can get national data on college-age behavior, but does that tell us what our students are doing in LoDo at 3:00 on a Friday night?"

While the survey—which students will submit anonymously—includes detailed questions about students' drinking habits, it asks about many other aspects of a student's life and health, including nutrition, exercise, weight, sexual health, mental health, violence and personal safety. Questions range from "How often do you wear a seat belt?" to "How many fruits and vegetables do you usually have per day?"

"Taking the survey will give students the opportunity to think seriously about their behaviors," says Mavromatis. This is particularly so of the alcohol-related questions, which include questions about what strategies the students are currently using, such as pacing drinks, using designated drivers and alternating nonalcoholic beverages with alcoholic ones.

The survey was created by the American College Health Association in 1998 and more than 160,000 students at 274 schools had participated in it by spring 2004.

Mavromatis, who teaches on campus about sexual health, and her colleagues at the Health Center are excited about using the survey results to create a proactive, Metro-specific approach to health concerns. "If we get enough responses, then we will have a good, statistically viable base to work from."

For more information about the survey, contact the Health Center at 303-556-2525.