Well, that would explain the voting record

Quote of note:

"Alcohol abuse is more prevalent among whites than among Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians. Alcohol dependence is more prevalent among Native Americans, Hispanics and whites than among Asians," the NIAAA, one of the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement.

Report: Alcohol abuse up, but fewer alcoholics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- More Americans are abusing alcohol than in the 1990s, but fewer are technically alcoholics, U.S. government researchers.

They found that the number of American adults who abuse alcohol or are alcohol dependent rose to 17.6 million or 8.46 percent of the population in 2001-2002 from 13.8 million or 7.41 percent of the population in 1991-1992.

The researchers cannot say why heavy drinking is up.

"The fact that alcohol disorder rates are highest among young adults underscores the need for concerted research on drinking patterns that initiate in adolescence," Dr. Ting-Kai Li, Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said Thursday.

The NIAAA study defines alcohol abuse as causing a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home; interpersonal social and legal problems; and/or drinking in hazardous situations.

Alcohol dependence, also known as alcoholism, is characterized by impaired control over drinking, compulsive drinking, preoccupation with drinking, tolerance to alcohol and/or withdrawal symptoms.

Posted by Prometheus 6 on June 12, 2004 - 1:56pm :: Health
 
Prometheus 6's blog | latest article | previous | next
 

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Trackback from LatinoPundit:

Who knew? The stereotype begs to differ. "Alcohol abuse is more prevalent among whites than among Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians.......

Posted by  LatinoPundit (not verified) on June 12, 2004 - 7:25pm.

my mother made the observation that people my age seem to like extreme forms of entertainment for fun including alcohol abuse. Binge drinking is really fun to some people in some quarters. i'm not sure why that is these days. I wonder if the rise in reality TV has anything to do with it.

Posted by  terry (not verified) on June 12, 2004 - 11:00pm.

See them saying hypertension/obesity is worse for hispanic/black groups on the PBS station as I type...

Alcohol abuse is probably getting the carbon monoxide Bush treatment. Drop a category of drinking off and suddenly there's less problems of alcohol.

Not saying this gracing of status changes the fact more whites are problem drinkers.

The fact that different cultures approach this differently means some people have got it together and drink without negative repurcussions.

Family demographics may have as much to do with it as well. Seems like when alcohol is part of Catholic culture for Hispanics it is then not defined/used in problem ways.

Defenitions within groups may be different as well for cultural desciption of a "problem" but the standard is probably more a result of people assimilating usage in ways that lead to a sense of control at the personal level.

Finally the top end is dying off at a fast rate, and the ads targeted at teens aren't getting enough new customers. They need to target it early teens like smoking does to keep up with their user's mortality rate...

Less users from mortaily rate, more abusers from compacted total numbers...

Posted by  Mr. Murder (not verified) on June 13, 2004 - 12:27pm.