Religious Affiliation and Alcohol Use Amongst the College Population at the University of Northern Colorado

A rampant problem growing globally is the issue of substance use disorders, especially that of alcohol abuse. As the problem of alcohol abuse spreads, finding tactics to mitigate this issue or discover what aspects are causing this issue is important to decrease the threat of a further problem developing. Prior research on different religious groups has shown that people who identify as highly devout in their religion are often less likely to exhibit signs of alcohol abuse. This study examined students at the University of Northern Colorado with the goal of comparing their levels of religious affiliation with their levels of alcohol consumption, to discover whether previous research stating that strong religious affiliation often leads to lower levels of alcohol use could be seen within this population. Compared to other research, this study focused more broadly on religion as a whole, instead of individual sects of religious groups. By focusing on religious affiliation as a whole, while giving participants the chance to self-identify with a religious group they see as fitting themselves best, a stronger understanding of how religious affiliation affects alcohol use from the students at the University of Northern Colorado was discovered. This data was collected anonymously through a voluntary Qualtrics survey administered to students, with questions based on previous surveys conducted by other researchers. This data was then analyzed to discover trends amongst participants with the assistance of the Applied Statistics and Research Methods Research Consulting Lab at the University of Northern Colorado. This analysis examined Kendall’s tau, Spearman’s rho, and completed a Pearson Correlation by using SPSS, and this analysis yielded no evidence of a correlation existing between religious affiliation and alcohol use within this population group, suggesting that prior research showing a correlation is not evident in all population groups.