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Binge Drinking - Editor's Note
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of consumption that causes blood alcohol concentration to rise to .08%—the legal limit for adults ages 21 or older operating a motor vehicle—or more. This level typically occurs after a woman consumes four drinks or a man consumes five drinks—in about 2 hours. Research suggests that three out of four...
Gender Differences in Binge Drinking
Alcohol Use Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury
Alcohol’s Effects on the Brain: Neuroimaging Results in Humans and Animal Models
Drinking Over the Lifespan: Focus on College Ages
Approximately 41 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are enrolled in a postsecondary degree-granting institution (National Center for Education Statistics 2013). As a group, college students, and particularly those at residential colleges (Presley et al. 2002), often drink heavily and experience myriad associated negative consequences. This selective review discusses the special characteristics of the...
Drinking Across the Lifespan: Focus on Older Adults
In 2010, when the leading edge of the post–World War II “Baby Boom” reached age 65, the United States began a period of increased growth in its older adult population. By 2030, it is expected that there will be 72.1 million adults age 65 or older living in the United States, almost double the 2008 population. Those older adults will represent 19.3 percent of the U.S. population, compared with 12...
Drinking Over the Lifespan: Focus on Early Adolescents and Youth
In describing patterns of alcohol use among early adolescents (ages 12–14) and youth (ages 15–20), there is both good news and bad news. The good news is that research findings with U.S. national epidemiology data from long-term annual surveys of high-school students, such as the Monitoring the Future surveys, have indicated historical shifts toward overall decreases in levels of alcohol use...
Associations Between Socioeconomic Factors and Alcohol Outcomes
According to the World Health Organization (2014), alcohol consumption is responsible for approximately 5.9 percent of deaths worldwide and a global loss of 139 million disability-adjusted life-years. The alcohol-related disease burden is precipitated in part by acute intoxication, which decreases reaction time, perception and motor skills, and inhibitions and is thereby associated with an...
Alcohol Consumption in Demographic Subpopulations: An Epidemiologic Overview
Alcohol consumption is common across diverse populations in the United States; however, the level of consumption and its consequences vary considerably across major demographic subgroups. This review presents findings on the distribution and determinants of alcohol use and its aspects (i.e., age of onset, abstention vs. any drinking, binge drinking, and heavy drinking), alcohol abuse and dependen...
