An increase in high-risk drinking among Cornell's undergraduate women has led to a media campaign designed to reduce both the incidence and the consequences of high-risk drinking, particularly among women.

The "Smart Women" campaign is the most recent in an ongoing series of media messages about student alcohol use from Cornell's Gannett Health Services that feature a "harm-reduction" approach.

"Harm-reduction strategies, which, rather than asking students not to drink, suggest ways to reduce negative consequences associated with drinking, have shown promise in moderating high-risk alcohol use among college students," says Deborah Lewis, alcohol projects coordinator at Gannett.

The campaign consists of a series of posters and promotional giveaways that reinforce specific harm-reduction messages. Poster slogans and designs were created with extensive input from student focus groups that took place during the fall semester. This is Gannett's first campaign that targets a specific segment of the population: women.

Analysis of Cornell data from large, random samples of undergraduate students in 2000, 2003 and 2005 suggest a striking increase in the percentage of women who drink heavily. While the number of men who report consuming five or more alcoholic drinks in a sitting has remained relatively constant at 49 percent, the number of women reporting a similar pattern of drinking has increased to 43 percent in 2003 from 34 percent in 2000 and remained relatively unchanged at 42 percent in 2005.

These findings are problematic because, for a number of physiological reasons, a woman's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) tends to be higher than that of a man who has consumed the same amount of alcohol, and the consequences can be especially dangerous; they include memory loss, poor academic performance, physical or emotional injury, participation in activities later regretted, victimization and alcohol poisoning.

The data for sorority women, however, are especially alarming. In 2005, 72 percent of sorority women reported drinking five or more drinks in a sitting within the past two weeks, compared with 36 percent of nonsorority women.

"We in the Panhellenic community realize the need for a proactive approach in dealing with this important issue and will be working with Gannett to educate our members about safe drinking behavior," says Katie Seeley, president of the Panhellenic Association.

In developing the Smart Women campaign, sorority women were included in the student focus groups that were the genesis of the poster designs. "You see it (the Smart Women poster), and it relates to you more, so you pay more attention than you would to a general message," says graduate student Galia Porat, ILR '05. "It is a reality. There is just more involved when girls are getting ready to go out. It may be stereotypical but it is a reality."

The first two posters of the campaign ("smart women know what to take to a party" and "smart men pre-game with food") rolled out this month.

The Smart Women campaign is part of a comprehensive campus effort, led by the President's Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs, designed to address campus alcohol use through a variety of educational, social, policy and environmental strategies. It was developed in collaboration with Campus Life and funded in part by the President's Council for Cornell Women.