The members of the Harvard Shooting Club may not be the only ones on campus with firearms, according to a recent study from the School of Public Health (HSPH).

HSPH researchers published a study in this month's Journal of American College Health showing that 3.5 of undergraduates surveyed own handguns at school. Students who drink heavily are more likely to keep a firearm in their dorm room, the study said.

Lecturer on Social Psychology Henry Wechsler based his conclusions on about 15,000 undergraduates' responses to a survey, which asked the students about their drinking habits and frequency of reckless behavior caused by drunkenness.

At the suggestion of HSPH colleagues Matthew Miller and David Hemenway, Wechsler decided to include a question about handgun ownership.

The results, published this month, show that 6.8 percent of students who said they had driven under the influence or vandalized property while drunk own handguns. And of students who said they needed a drink "first thing in the morning," 12.4 percent own a gun, according to the survey.

Wechsler said he was not surprised by the results pointing out that the findings highlight the connection between high-risk behaviors.

"People who do high risk things also tend to do other high risk things," he said.

But Wechsler said the correlation noted in the study is especially worrisome.

"What has concerned me is that it's the extremes of drinking, being arrested for driving under the influence, getting injured in fights," he said. "These are really high risk people and the fact that they're more likely to own guns is a frightening prospect."

Wechsler said he may repeat the study in two years and add detailed questions about other behaviors that might be linked to heavy drinking.

--Jonelle M. Lonergan

Medical School researchers may have just fanned the flames in the raging debate over managed health care.

A study published last week found that managed care patients receive higher quality care, on average, if they are covered by not-for-profit health maintenance organizations (HMOs) than if they are covered by for-profit HMOs.

The study has far-reaching implications since so many Americans use for-profit HMOs, according to the study's authors.

"A large proportion of Americans are getting their care in HMOs," said Associate Professor of Medicine Dr. Steffie J. Woolhandler, who co-authored the study with Associate Professor David U. Himmlestein.

"These new HMOs that dominate the market are primarily for-profit," Woolhandler said. "And little is known about the quality of care in those plans."

Woolhandler said the results confirmed what many doctors had believed all along.

"I think a lot of doctors had guessed that the quality of care is better in non-profit HMOs," she said, adding that private health plans generally spend more money than not-for-profits on various expenses.

The study examined 248 private plans and 81 not-for-profits, finding that not-for-profits had an overall higher quality of care in areas such as immunization and prenatal care.

The researchers worked with data the HMOs turned over to the National Committee for Quality Assurance. And Woolhandler said the data, which was volunteered by the HMOs themselves, is as accurate as possible.

"We think they may try to make themselves look good," she said. But she added that "there are rules on how they collect the data and some of it is audited."

Woolhandler said that while she and her co-author are interested in pursuing the subject further, such studies have been made more difficult recently by HMOs' refusal to hand over data about their care.

"The quality of the info available in the future is likely to be less than it is now," she said. "It's almost impossible to get information on HMOs that refuse to release their data."

Woolhandler said the trend of withholding quality data will prove harmful to patients who count on their HMOs for care.

"If this kind of information is not released, consumers are going to suffer," she said.

--Jonelle M. Lonergan