. " I. Underage Drinking in the United States - 2. Characteristics of Underage Drinking." Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2004.
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Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility
TABLE 2-4 Drinking Frequency and Intensity for Youths and Adults (current drinkers only)
*If respondents indicated that their usual number of drinks per occasion was some number greater than 12, that response was recoded as “missing.” Missing values were imputed, using means for the same sex and age group.
NOTE: Standard deviations in parentheses.
SOURCE: Data from the 2000 NHSDA.
TABLE 2-5 Drinking Patterns for Youth and Adults (current drinkers only)
Age
Drinking Pattern
12-14
15-17
18-20
21-25
26+
Mean number of drinking days per month
3.40
(4.12)
4.98
(5.45)
6.54
(6.39)
6.87
(6.59)
8.16
(8.50)
Mean number of “usual” drinks on a drinking day
4.65
(8.09)
6.30
(7.70)
6.47
(8.30)
5.34
(7.71)
3.25
(5.02)
Mean number of days drank heavily per month
1.35
(2.74)
2.69
(4.09)
3.59
(5.11)
3.00
(4.76)
1.68
(4.25)
NOTE: Standard deviations in parentheses.
SOURCE: Data from the 2000 NHSDA.
be type of housing rather than college enrollment. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Cook and Moore (2001) found that being in school actually reduced drinking and heavy drinking. The group with the highest prevalence of heavy drinking, other things equal,
