HHS HealthBeat (August 18, 2009)

The college binge

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Researchers say binge drinking became less common after the national drinking age was set at 21 – except among college students.

Richard Grucza of Washington University School of Medicine found that in national survey data between 1979 and 2006. He says young men not in college became 30 percent less likely to have five or more drinks at a time, although non-college women had a 20 percent increase.

But Grucza says college men binged as much as always and college women were over 40 percent more likely.

[Richard Grucza speaks] "It seems as though these positive trends – the tendency for binge drinking to go down in society – has not permeated college campuses."

The study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 7, 2011