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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Reduce the proportion of people under 21 years who engaged in binge drinking in the past month — SU‑09 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology  |  History

About the National Data

Data

Data Source:  National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), SAMHSA

Baseline: 11.4 percent of persons aged 12 to 20 years reported binge drinking in the past 30 days in 2018

Target: 8.4 percent

Numerator
Number of persons aged 12 to 20 years who report having 5 or more drinks (for males) or 4 or more drinks (for females) at the same time or within a couple of hours of each other during the past 30 days.
Denominator
Number of persons aged 12 to 20 years.
Target-setting method
Percentage point improvement
Target-setting method details
Percentage point improvement from the baseline using Cohen's h effect size of 0.10.
1
Target-setting method justification
Trend data were evaluated for this objective, but it was not possible to project a target because the Healthy People 2030 Workgroup Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) expected a slowdown in the decline. A percentage point improvement was calculated using Cohen's h effect size of 0.1. This method was used because it was a statistically significantly improvement from the baseline and the SMEs viewed this as an ambitious yet achievable target.

Methodology

Questions used to obtain the national baseline data

(For additional information, please visit the data source page linked above.)

From the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health:

Numerator:
Males:
During the past 30 days, that is, since [DATE], on how many days did you have 5 or more drinks on the same occasion? By 'occasion,' we mean at the same time or within a couple of hours of each other.
Females:
During the past 30 days, that is, since [DATE], on how many days did you have 4 or more drinks on the same occasion? By 'occasion,' we mean at the same time or within a couple of hours of each other.

Methodology notes

Binge drinking is defined as drinking 5 or more alcoholic beverages for men or 4 or more alcoholic beverages for women at the same time or within a couple of hours of each other during the past 30 days. A description of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) has been published by SAMHSA.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Modified, which includes core objectives that are continuing from Healthy People 2020 but underwent a change in measurement.
Changes between HP2020 and HP2030
This objective differs from Healthy People 2020 objective SA-14.4 in that objective SA-14.4 tracked binge drinking in the past month among persons aged 12 to 17 years, while this objective tracks binge drinking in the past month among persons aged 12 to 20 years.

1. Effect size h=0.1 was chosen to correspond with 10% improvement from a baseline of 50%.