With fest season in full swing, alcohol-caused blackouts could be hitting Ohio University students in the wallets, according to a recent study.
Half of college students who drink say they’ve had at least one blackout due to drinking, according to a study done by The University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The study, which followed about 950 total students at five schools, found that the emergency-room costs of treating college students’ injuries associated with alcohol-induced blackouts can be more than half a million dollars per year at a university with 40,000 or more students.
“Binge drinking causes judgment to go down, which can result in injury and blackouts,” said John Kemerer, medical director of Campus Care and assistant professor of family medicine in the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. “That seems to be the problem that we see is binge drinking, which leads to blackout drinking. I think this is more of a behavioral issue.”
Campus Care Director of Operations Tonya Burdette echoed Kemerer, saying she is not surprised by the study’s findings.
Students who experienced frequent alcohol-related blackouts — six or more in the prior year — were 70 percent more likely to be treated through emergency services than those who consumed the same amount of alcohol but didn’t experience blackouts.
“College alcohol abusers susceptible to blackouts put a heavy burden on the emergency medical care system,” Kemerer said.
Asking students about blackouts could be a way to identify students most at risk, according to one of the study’s authors, Marlon Mundt, an assistant scientist in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In the study, it was estimated that close to $500,000 could be saved in emergency-department utilization costs on a large university campus each year if interventions targeting blackout sufferers were successful.
“I think that there is money that could be saved,” Kemerer said. “Unfortunately, what happens is, when someone is blacked out, they will be taken to an emergency room by ambulance. You will have an ambulance cost, the cost of the visit and the hospitalization. I can see that costs would be high.”
Another solution besides asking students about blackouts, Kemerer said, could be OU’s offering more alcohol-free activities for students.
“OU could create alcohol-free and drug-free social events or extracurricular activities,” Kemerer said. “These are other things that could help prevent alcohol-related injuries.”
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