Social Ecological Contexts and Alcohol Drinking Dynamics: An Application of the Survey Data-Driven Agent-Based Model for University Students

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.