US: Frequent Military Binge Drinking Reported

13 February 2009

MINNEAPOLIS-Binge drinking is common among active-duty military personnel and is strongly associated with alcohol-impaired driving, U.S. researchers said.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed data from 16,037 active-duty military personnel who participated in a 2005 Department of Defense Survey of Health-Related Behaviors among Military Personnel.

For purposes of the study, binge drinking is defined as consuming four or more drinks on one occasion for a woman or five or more drinks on one occasion for a man.

The study, scheduled to be published in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found than half of all active-duty personnel who reported binge drinking -- compared to non-binge drinkers -- were more than six times more likely to report job performance problems and about five times more likely to report driving after having too much to drink.

First author Mandy Stahre, a doctoral candidate in alcohol epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, said that 43 percent of active-duty personnel reported binge drinking during the past-month.

The researchers calculated that the number of binge drinking episodes amounted to roughly 30 episodes per person per year -- or more than 30 million binge-drinking episodes in 2005.