Secondhand Harms of Alcohol: How College Student Drinking Harms Others

Public Health Institute
April 2025

Young people ages 18-24 suffer disproportionately from alcohol-related harm, including harms caused by other peoples’ drinking, and college students are at particularly high risk. This is a concern not only because young drinkers cause harm to themselves, but also because the people around them suffer harms from their drinking.

PHI’s Alcohol Research Group investigated the prevalence and risk factors of alcohol’s harm to others (AHTO) among US college students (sophomores/juniors), based on the first national probability-based survey conducted in 20 years. The study “Harms from others’ drinking among college students: Prevalence and risk factors, 2022”, co-authored by researchers from the Alcohol Research Group and published in Drug Alcohol Review, found that AHTOs, including academic, physical and sexual harms, are prevalent on college campuses, suggesting that colleges likely underestimate the impact of alcohol on their students.

Key Findings:

• In fall 2021, nearly 6 million sophomores and juniors (53.5%) reported at least one AHTO.
• While only 7.3% of all AHTOs occurred in fraternity and sorority spaces, these settings accounted for 26.2% of all sexual AHTOs.
• Students with a heavy drinker in their life had a 23% higher probability of experiencing verbal AHTOs, an 18% higher probability of frequent mental distress, and a 13% greater probability of needing services due to someone else’s drinking.
• Students who experienced verbal AHTOs had higher odds of suicidal ideation, while those who experienced sexual or academic AHTOs had significantly greater odds of mental distress.
• Every 10% increase in the strength of a college’s alcohol policy environment was linked to a 9% reduction in monthly alcohol volume, 7% fewer binge drinking days, and 17% lower odds of verbal AHTOs.

This study highlights the urgent need for colleges and communities to take greater action toward reducing college drinking and its broader impacts, such as reducing alcohol availability, enacting social host ordinances and addressing wet environments like fraternities. Additional analyses are underway, including studies on gender and sexual minority students, detailed profiles of victims and perpetrators and the role of COVID-era alcohol policies in AHTOs.

A version of this story first appeared in ARG’s 2024 impact report. Learn more about this work on ARG’s site.