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20.25: Young People and Binge Drinking

  • Page ID
    2547
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    Learning Objectives

    • Binge drinking and serious public health problems

    Research conducted by

    Richard O. de Visser and Julian D. Birch

    Case study prepared by

    Robert F. Houser and Georgette Baghdady

    Overview

    Binge drinking is a serious public health problem bringing harm to both the individual and society. It compromises a person's health, increasing the risk of many diseases, injury, and death. It also results in a greater incidence of motor vehicle crashes, violence, the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, and unintended pregnancies. Binge drinking is prevalent among both young and older adults, men and women, and high and low income levels. Governments have formulated guidelines for moderate or sensible drinking levels. The government of the United Kingdom (UK) issued guidelines for sensible drinking as \(2-3\) alcohol units per day for women and \(3-4\) units per day for men, an alcohol unit being \(10\) milliliters of ethanol. A binge drinking episode is when a person drinks above double the recommended daily guidelines in a short period of time.

    Questions to Answer

    What can we learn about the binge drinking patterns of university students in England? Do the bingers and non-bingers differ in their knowledge of the sensible drinking guidelines issued by the UK government?

    Design Issues

    The university students in the sample "self-selected" to participate in the study by responding to recruiting efforts made via email messages and requests in lectures.

    Descriptions of Variables

    Table \(\PageIndex{1}\): Description of Variables
    Variable Description
    Sex Female or male
    mo_binge_n Number of times the university students did binge drinking in the last month (using sex-specific definitions)
    modrunk Number of times the university students drank in the last month
    wk_unit_prop Familiarity with alcohol unit-based guidelines (measured on a 5-point scale)
    k_unit_sum Knowledge of alcohol unit-based guidelines (score out of 7)
    u_fam Familiarity with alcohol unit-based guidelines (measured on a 5-point scale)

    Data Files

    Binge.xls

    Links

    de Visser et al. article

    References

    • de Visser, R. O., Birch, J. D. (2012). My cup runneth over:Young people's lack of knowledge of low-risk drinking guidelines. Drug and Alcohol Review, 31, 206-212.

    This page titled 20.25: Young People and Binge Drinking is shared under a Public Domain license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by David Lane via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

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