College-aged students are one of the most vulnerable populations to high-risk alcohol drinking behaviors that could cause them consequences such as injury or sexual assault. An important factor that may influence college students’ decision on alcohol drinking behavior is socializing in certain contexts across the university environment. In the present study, we aim to identify and better understand the ecological conditions driving the dynamics of distribution of alcohol use among college-aged students. To this end, a pilot survey study is conducted to evaluate students’ movement patterns in different contexts across the Arizona State University (ASU) campus, and the results are used to develop an agent-based simulation model designed for examining the role of environmental factors on development and maintenance of alcohol drinking behavior by a representative sample of ASU students. The proposed model, which resembles an approximate reaction–diffusion model, accounts for movement of agents (i.e., diffusion) in various contexts and alcohol drinking influences within those contexts (i.e., reaction) via a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered type individual-based model. Of the four most visited contexts at ASU Tempe campus—Library, Memorial Union, Fitness Center, and Dorm—the context with the highest visiting probability, Memorial Union, is the most influential and most sensitive context (around sixteen times higher an impact of alcohol-related influences than the other contexts) in terms of spreading alcohol drinking behavior. Our findings highlight the crucial role of socialization in local environments on the dynamics of students’ alcohol use as well as on the long-term prediction of the college drinking prevalence.

大学生是最容易受到高风险饮酒行为影响的人群之一，这些行为可能会给他们带来伤害或性侵犯等后果。可能影响大学生饮酒行为决定的一个重要因素是在大学环境中的某些背景下进行社交。在本研究中，我们旨在确定并更好地了解驱动大学生酒精使用分布动态的生态条件。为此，进行了一项试点调查研究，以评估亚利桑那州立大学 (ASU) 校园内不同环境下学生的运动模式，结果用于开发基于代理的模拟模型，该模型旨在通过 ASU 学生的代表性样本来检查环境因素对饮酒行为的发展和维持的作用。所提出的模型类似于近似的反应 - 扩散模型，通过易感 - 感染 - 恢复型基于个体的模型解释了各种环境中的代理运动（即扩散）和这些环境中的饮酒影响（即反应） . 在 ASU 坦佩校区访问量最大的四个环境中——图书馆、纪念联盟、健身中心和宿舍——访问概率最高的环境，纪念联盟，是传播饮酒行为最有影响力和最敏感的环境（酒精相关影响的影响比其他环境高出约 16 倍）。我们的研究结果强调了当地环境中的社会化对学生饮酒动态以及大学饮酒流行率的长期预测的关键作用。