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Monday, June 8, 2009

Age of drinking onset, alcohol use disorders, frequent heavy drinking, and unintentionally injuring oneself and others after drinking.
PEDIATRICS Vol. 123 No. 6 June 2009, pp. 1477-1484

Logistic regression analyses revealed that the younger respondents were when they started drinking, the greater the likelihood that, between the 2 surveys, they experienced alcohol dependence/abuse, drank 5 drinks per occasion at least weekly drove under the influence of alcohol, and placed themselves in situation after drinking where they could be hurt.

After controlling for those injury risk and sociodemographic characteristics, respondents who began drinking at earlier ages remained more likely between the 2 surveys to have, under the influence of alcohol, unintentionally injured themselves and someone else. More than one third of those injuries occurred when respondents 25 years of age were under the influence, although only 7% of respondents were 25 years of age. Persons other than respondents experienced 20% of those unintentional injuries, more than one third of them in traffic.
Delaying drinking onset may help reduce unintentional alcohol-related injuries that drinkers may inflict on themselves and others.


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