How many versus how much: 52 weeks of alcohol consumption in emerging adults.

Abstract

In previous research using time-line follow-back methods to closely monitor drinking and related variables over the first year of college (9 month), we showed that drinking varied considerably over time in accord with academic requirements and holidays. In a new community sample of emerging adults (576, 18 and 19 year olds who reported having begun drinking prior to recruitment), we used similar methods to compare drinking patterns in college and noncollege individuals over a full calendar year (including summers). To reduce the extreme distortion in computations of average drinking over restricted time spans (i.e., one week) that arise because large numbers of even regular drinkers may not consume any alcohol, we analyzed data using recently developed two-part latent growth curve modeling. This modeling distinguished consumption levels from numbers of individuals drinking in a given period. Results showed that drinking levels and patterns generally did not differ between college and noncollege drinkers, and that both groups responded similarly to even those contexts that may have seemed unique to one (i.e., Spring Break). We also showed that computation of drinking amounts without accounting for “zero drinkers” could seriously distort estimates of mean drinking on some occasions; for example, mean consumption in the total sample appeared to increase on Thanksgiving, whereas actual average consumption for those who were drinking diminished.

High-resolution Temporal Representations of Alcohol and Tobacco Behaviors from Social Media Data

“…This work goes beyond the resolution of survey based measures of weekly and daily trends of alcohol consumption [5, 42] and examines trends about alcohol consumption, through social media communications, at the sub-daily level using amplitude, frequency and phase.…”

“…The increasing magnitude and cost of alcohol and tobacco related problems make them especially vital behaviors to monitor, identify high-risk groups and patterns of consumption during typical weeks as well as changes during holiday or other periods and moments for most effective implementation of interventions [42]. Total costs to federal, state and local governments of substance use disorders, which most often have their onset in adolescence, are at least $468 billion per year which is almost $1,500 for every person in America [61].…”

“…However, survey time frames and sampling frames do not support real-time monitoring, robust subgroup investigation, flexible follow-up or feedback of health alerts and information to subjects. Further, there is an awareness in the public health community that existing estimates from survey-based reports of use do not reflect the full extent of variability of drinking over limited time periods, suffer from under-reporting especially in regard to substance use, and do not adequately represent consumption during all time periods in the calendar year [42]. …”

Profiles of College Drinkers Defined by Alcohol Behaviors at the Week Level: Replication Across Semesters and Prospective Associations With Hazardous Drinking and Dependence-Related Symptoms

“…Given the erratic, opportunistic nature of college drinking over short periods (Goldman et al, 2011;Maggs et al, 2011), it is likely that, at the individual level, drinker type membership may vary substantially within individuals over time (e.g., across weeks). However, behavioral profi les of drinker statuses may replicate, such that the types of drinking weeks that students may experience (e.g., heavy drinking week) would be similar at different points in time.…”

“…However, behavioral profi les of drinker statuses may replicate, such that the types of drinking weeks that students may experience (e.g., heavy drinking week) would be similar at different points in time. Daily reports from a sampled week may include atypically low or high drinking days (Del Boca et al, 2004;Goldman et al, 2011;Hoeppner et al, 2012), but aggregated measures may suffer from errors in aggregation and recall bias and ignore atypical but important occasions (Lemmens et al, 1988;Mundt et al, 1995). Accordingly, we identify drinker statuses at the week level using daily reports and also with aggregated estimates from traditional measures because these approaches may provide complementary yet divergent fi ndings about college drinking.…”