Binge drinking among young US adults not in college increased

27 July 2017 --- Binge drinking rates are finally down among US college students aged 18 to 24, after years of increases, but they are up among those in the same age group who are not in college, according to a study in the July issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. The same study also found that alcohol-related hospitalizations and overdose deaths have increased generally among 18- to 24-year-olds.

Research for the study began in 1998, when the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) put together a task force to examine problems related to college drinking and find possible solutions, according to study author and task force member Ralph Hingson, Sc.D., M.P.H., of the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research at the NIAAA.

In the current update of the task force’s first report, first published in 2002, researchers looked at data through 2014. They found that in every year from 1999 to 2005, binge drinking and its related problems increased among college students aged 18 to 24. However, those same numbers declined across the board from 2005 to 2014. 

The percentage of college students who reported binge drinking, which was defined as five or more drinks on an occasion at least once in the last 30 days, rose from 42 percent to 45 percent from 1999 to 2005. However, it then declined to 37 percent by 2014. For those not in college, binge drinking rose from 36 percent to 40 percent between 1999 and 2014.

While the rates of binge drinking have declined among college students, extreme binge drinking – drinking at two or more times the binge threshold – is known to be a continued public health concern in the US. A recent study by Dr. Hingson, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that tens of millions of Americans drink at dangerously high levels.

Those in college who reported driving under the influence of alcohol rose from 27 percent to 28 percent from 1999 and 2005, but this fell to 17 percent by 2014. For those not in college, driving under the influence declined from 20 percent to 16 percent between 1999 and 2014.

“A number of factors may have contributed to the recent reduction in binge drinking and its related problems among college students,” says Hingson. He hypothesizes that an increased emphasis by college administrators on interventions aimed at reducing problematic drinking may have played a role.

In more recent years, says Hingson, studies have shown that interventions can work on multiple levels. He believes this is true not only among individuals but also at the family level through educational programming at the colleges and in the community through alcohol policy adoption and implementation. Studies have also shown that interventions can reduce alcohol-related problems, not only for college students who drink, but also for other college students – in effect, this has reduced the second-hand effects of excessive drinking.

“This expansion of the literature may have prompted more colleges to adopt a wider array of interventions,” says Hingson.

In 2015, NIAAA released the CollegeAIM (Alcohol Intervention Matrix), a tool to help colleges and universities select evidence-based alcohol interventions for their campuses. Two other possible factors include the economic recession of 2008 – less disposable income means less money to spend on alcohol – and the passage in every US state of the .08 percent legal limit for blood alcohol concentration in drivers by 2005.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, increases in overdose hospitalizations and deaths involving alcohol – alone and in combination with other drugs – and the rising rates of binge drinking in non-college students of the same age are worrisome, says Hingson, and these are areas that he and his researchers will continue to study.

He notes that the increase in alcohol overdoses, particularly among 21- to 24-year-olds, may relate to the rise in extreme binge drinking, which was found to be particularly common among people who used other drugs, based on his previous research.

“Among young adults who aren't in college, there aren't the same organizational supports to implement interventions, and that may be contributing to why binge drinking is increasing in that group,” he says.

Alcohol’s dangers for all age groups have been a hot topic of discussion in Europe recently as Estonia’s EU presidency has featured a discussion about improving health warning labels on alcohol products to better educate the public as to its dangers. Meanwhile, the dangers of alcohol have also been laid bare by research that has discovered why prenatal alcohol exposure increases the likelihood of future addiction for the child.