Students at UC Davis think their peers drink, take drugs and have sex more often than is the case, according to the results of a comprehensive health survey.
And while almost 90 percent of students surveyed considered their health to be good to excellent, the survey highlights room for improvement in several health-related practices, including condom use.
A total of 686 students completed the survey. About 70 percent were female and 30 percent were male. Just under 10 percent of all respondents belonged to a fraternity or sorority.
The survey found 25 percent of students never drink, 59 percent were sexually active in the past year, 6.5 percent were involved in physical fights, 1.1 percent of women were sexually assaulted and 11 percent of women were sexually touched against their will.
The survey used 91 questions on the National College Health Assessment Survey to ask undergraduates about their own behaviors and their perceptions of campus norms for high-risk activities. Topics ranged from alcohol and drug use to sexual activity and depression.
Carol Wall, vice chancellor for student affairs, says the results will help guide new and ongoing educational efforts. "We want to let students who are making responsible choices, about alcohol consumption for example, know that they are among the majority," she said. "In other cases, we need to provide students with information that will persuade them to alter their behavior."
Studies have found that correcting misperceptions of majority student behavior leads to measurable reductions of selected risk behaviors in many student communities, according to Pat Lindsay, assistant director for health promotion for the Cowell Student Health Center at UC Davis.
The campus is conducting focus group interviews on the survey’s alcohol findings to aid in the development of campus media campaigns. A campaign will be conducted regarding the reduction of risk associated with alcohol and drugs, and an educational campaign will address risk reduction associated with sexuality and reproductive health.
The campus also will evaluate and update programs addressing issues students identified as affecting their academic success.
• Alcohol
About 25.2 percent of students indicated they never drink alcohol or had not consumed any in the past year, and only 1 percent reported drinking five to seven times weekly. About 37 percent of respondents had not consumed alcohol in the past 30 days; and 90 percent said they drink alcohol fewer than one day out of every three or four.
However, surveyed students think their peers drink a lot more. Almost half assumed their peers are drinking 10 to 30 days each month. Seventy percent of students reported having zero to three drinks at the average party. However students assumed that only a third of other students consume three or fewer drinks at a party.
Fraternity and sorority members reported alcohol consumption at a higher rate than for the whole survey group, and they overestimated how much others drink.
About 22 percent of students reported high-risk drinking, considered to be five or more drinks in a sitting, in the two weeks be-fore the survey. Forty-two percent of Greek letter members reported high-risk drinking in the two weeks prior to the survey.
• Drugs and tobacco
Among the drugs (excluding alcohol) that students reported using over the past year, most common were cigarettes (30 percent), marijuana (25 percent), and cigars (18 percent). Others included designer drugs (8 percent), amphetamines (5 percent), smokeless tobacco (4 percent), hallucinogens (3 percent), cocaine (2 percent), sedatives (2 percent), opiates (1 percent) and inhalants (1 percent). None reported using steroids.
All drugs were perceived to be in higher use by peers than is the case.
•Mental health
Respondents said many mental health-related factors had an impact on their academic achievement. About 45.5 percent were negatively affected by stress, 32.6 percent by sleep problems, 24 percent by relationship problems and 18 percent by depression.
Fifty to 90 percent of students experienced one or more types of stressful emotional states in the previous year, ranking from feelings of hopelessness, sadness and exhaustion to depressed feelings interfering with activities. Slightly more than 50 percent felt so depressed it was difficult to function, with one-third experiencing this depressed state two to 10 times. Between 8 and 9 percent of respondents reported being clinically diagnosed with depression. Nearly 13 percent of respondents reported seriously considering suicide one or more times in the past year, with 0.9 percent having attempted it one or more times in that period.
•Sexual activity
About 40 percent of men and women reported never having had sexual intercourse, including anal or oral sex. Of the students who were sexually active in the past year, 66 percent had one sex partner, 29 percent had two to four partners and fewer than 3 percent had five or more partners.
As with alcohol and drug use, students believed their fellow students are engaging in all forms of sexual intercourse much more frequently and with more partners.
The low rate of students using a male or female condom for any type of sexual activity is a concern, the report states. While national data indicates condom use is on the rise among teens and young adults, it is still not the norm among UC Davis students.
Just over 2 percent of sexually active students indicated they used a condom at last oral intercourse, 45 percent at last vaginal intercourse, and 8 percent at last anal intercourse. Respondents believed that others’ use of condoms is much higher than these figures. The contraceptives of choice were, by far, birth control pills, at 23.3 percent, and male or female condoms, at 23.2 percent.
•Sexually transmitted diseases and infections
Twenty-one percent of students reported having been tested for the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV; and 53 percent had been vaccinated against hepatitis B.
Genital warts/human papilloma virus was the most frequently reported sexually transmitted infection diagnosed in the past year (6.3 percent of respondents), followed by genital herpes (5.2 percent) and HIV (2.9 percent). Those numbers should be viewed with caution, the report says, because it is unlikely that the majority of students have ever been tested for infection.
•Violence and sexual assault
About 6.5 percent of all students were involved in physical fights during the last year; 4.6 percent were physically assaulted.
About 11 percent of female students experienced sexual touching against their will, 2.6 percent experienced attempted sexual penetration against their will, and 1.1 percent experienced sexual penetration against their will. Among male respondents, 2.9 percent experienced sexual touching against their will, 2 percent experienced attempted sexual penetration against their will, and 0.5 percent experienced sexual penetration against their will.