Variation in Detrimental Drinking Patters across the US States

Per-capita consumption is not the only quantity of importance in assessing the impact of alcohol use on society. Although the way in which it is used is widely recognized as important as well, quantifying drinking patterns using a variety of measures is still an area of active investigation. In addition, any quantification of drinking variables to formulate a description of a detrimental pattern of drinking will also vary, even within a country. To study this problem, the 2000 & 2005 National Alcohol Surveys were combined, providing a total of N=14,531 observations spread across the 50 states (and DC) with a minimum of 90 respondents in a state (and an average of 285 cases/state). Variables used to empirically estimate a detrimental drinking pattern score included % drinking daily, % time getting drunk when drinking, usual quantity per occasion, drinking commonly occurring in public places, and several other variables thought to be related to alcohol-related problems and dependence. Optimal scaling methods were used to scale US states according to their drinking patterns with the result that, in gender-specific analyses, each state is assigned an object score, or Detrimental Drinking Pattern (DDP), similar to a factor score in Principal Component Analysis. The DDP score across states were then categorized for simplicity. Important regional variation in patterns of DDP score was found and related to other state level characteristics, such as state-level policies and aggregate survey level attitudes towards drinking and drunkenness with the possibility of better designed and targeted interventions.