Mary Claire O'Brien, M.D., and colleagues from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine found that college students who reported getting drunk at least once a week were three times more likely to suffer alcohol-related injuries than those who got drunk less than once a week, and were 75 percent more likely to be sexual-assault victims.

The researchers said that a simple screening question -- "In a typical week, how many days do you get drunk?" -- could help identify high-risk students, especially in hospital emergency rooms. "Our goal was to develop a simple tool to tell which student drinkers are at highest risk of getting hurt, as a result of their own drinking and the drinking of others," said O'Brien.

O'Brien's project is part of the five-year Study to Prevent Alcohol-Related Consequences (SPARC), funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The study results were reported at last week's meeting of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine in New York City.

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