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Intoxication Levels of Bar Patrons at an Organized Pub Crawl in a College Campus Community

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Abstract

This field study examined whether participants of a traditional, end-of-semester pub crawl in a college campus community had higher levels of intoxication than non-participating bar patrons on the same night as the event. A total of 693 bar patrons participated in the study. Anonymous interview and breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) data were collected from pedestrians in a bar district at the end point of the pub crawl route between 10:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. on the night of the event during three different semesters (November, 2007, May, 2008, and May, 2009). A multivariate model adjusting for participant demographics and drinking variables showed that participation in the pub crawl was associated with a 70% reduced risk of being highly intoxicated (i.e., BrAC ≥ 0.08 g/210 L). The lower intoxication levels among pub crawl participants may have implications for harm reduction practices at high-risk drinking events. These implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. After examining other methods of handling missing data (see Allison, 2002), it was determined that list-wise deletion would yield the least-biased parameter estimates.

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Acknowledgements

This project was supported by funds from the first author and the Student Safety Research Colloquium at the University of Florida. The following persons are acknowledged for their contributions to this research project: Dr. Dennis Thombs, Dr. Robert Weiler, Dr. Steven Pokorny, Dr. Michele Merves, Jason Bowman, Ryan O’Mara, Sara Gullet, Laura Haderxhanaj, Gregory Feldman, Tommy Huang, Altina Fenelon, Rick Ligon, Petey Bingham, Sam Darr, Chung-Bang Weng, Amanda Hecker, David Mendoza, Matthew Rossheim, Lindsay Hovermale, and Miranda Tsukamoto.

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Correspondence to David N. Khey.

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Dodd, V.J., Khey, D.N. & Miller, E.M. Intoxication Levels of Bar Patrons at an Organized Pub Crawl in a College Campus Community. Am J Crim Just 37, 246–257 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-011-9114-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-011-9114-6

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