Alcohol usage among high school and college students in the state remains a concern, said Vicki Michels, director of addiction studies at Minot State University.

Results of a survey of students at Minot State University and at colleges elsewhere in the state taken last year showed high rates of alcohol use, binge drinking and driving while under the influence. The statistics have been shown at presentations to area service groups.

According to the statistics, 83.5 percent of the students surveyed for the 2009 anonymous survey acknowledged using alcohol during the past year, while 73.6 percent acknowledged using alcohol in the past 30 days. Some 18.6 percent had used alcohol three times per week or more, while 50.6 percent had at some point had five or more drinks at one sitting, 40.6 percent had driven a car while under the influence of alcohol, and only 1.5 percent had been arrested for DUI. Some 77.6 percent of the students sampled were between the ages of 18 and 22. The legal drinking age is 21.

Michels said the university uses this data and data for the entire university system to help plan alcohol education programs. Students receive education during orientation week and in residence hall presentations about the effects of alcohol on the body and other risks such as sexual assault or of contracting an STD while under intoxication. The university also has a "Beaver Bus" that students can call when they are too intoxicated to drive.

"I think (the rate) would be a lot higher if we weren't doing those things," said Michels, but she acknowledged that the rates of drinking are still high.

Michels said the survey data shows that the majority of students began drinking when they were in high school.

"I think it's a community effort that we need to have," said Michels. "we need to change the culture (of accepting underage drinking.)"

Michels said studies also show that the most effective advertising aimed at prevention of underage drinking is aimed at parents rather than at adolescents.

"Parents still have a lot of influence," said Michels, even on college students, though the statistics don't specifically address how parents affect their college-age children.

The college also needs to attack perceptions by college students that make drinking acceptable, said Michels.

"They think it's higher than it really is," said Michels, who said there's a perception that most students are drinking three times a week, when the number is actually only about 20 percent.

Alcohol use can be a risk factor for other high-risk behaviors, such as having unprotected sex and putting oneself at risk of contracting HIV or another sexually transmitted disease.

Students can be tested for HIV for free at the student health clinic, said Caren Barnett, director of the student health service, and students can receive the results on the spot.

Barnett said the staff does a pre-counseling session, talks with students about behaviors that might put them at risk. Alcohol is a big factor in those risk-taking behaviors, she said.

Free material gives students information about the dangers of having intercourse with multiple partners, explaining that it's like having intimate contact with that person and all the people that person has been with prior to the encounter.

"We encourage them to be of their senses when they're making those choices," said Barnett, but she said "this is also the age where 'things don't happen to me.'" That sense of invulnerability can lead teenagers and college-age students to take part in risky behavior even after they've received education about the things that could happen.

Minot State University conducted 74 HIV screenings in the health clinic last year.

"I'm thankful that we have not had a positive HIV test on campus," said Barnett, but she said if they did they would have the resources to get the student counseling and access to the proper treatment and support services.

Students also receive education about HIV and AIDS prevention in campus presentations.

Minot middle and high schools also cover AIDS and alcohol awareness extensively, through presentations and in health or science classes, said principals and teachers at Minot High School.

Binge drinking in high school-age students is also higher than the national average, with 33 percent of North Dakota teens reporting on the 2007 anonymous Youth Risk Behavior Survey that they'd had five or more drinks at one sitting at some point compared with 26 percent of high school students nationally. Some 32 percent of North Dakota teens in the 2007 survey had rode with a driver who had been drinking, compared with 29 percent of teenagers nationally and 19 percent of North Dakota teenagers admitted to driving after they'd been drinking, in 2007 compared with 11 percent nationally.

Rates of HIV and AIDS infections are lower statewide than they are nationally.

As of 2008, according to the state health department, there were three people with HIV or AIDS living in North Dakota who were diagnosed when they were younger than 13, one person with HIV or AIDS who was diagnosed when he or she was between the ages of 13 and 19, and 43 people living in the state who had been diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 29. Most people who have the disease and live in North Dakota 80 of them, or 43 percent were diagnosed when they were between the ages of 30 and 39. The rest of the cases were older than 40 when they were diagnosed. Other people who were diagnosed while living in the state between 1984 and 2008 have since died or moved away.

A little over 42 percent of North Dakota high school students reported being sexually active in 2007, with 11 percent of ninth through 12th-graders reporting in 2007 they had had four or more sexual partners. Twenty-eight percent of the North Dakota teens who had sex in the prior three months reported that they had used alcohol or drugs right before the sexual encounter. Sixty-four percent of the sexually active teens had used a condom during their last sexual encounter and 25 percent had used birth control pills.

As at the college level, educators use the statistics to help plan educational programs and advertising geared at curbing risky behavior in adolescents or college-age students.