Excessive alcohol use is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States (1) and was responsible for approximately 79,000 deaths and 2.3 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) in the United States each year during 2001--2005.* Binge drinking, defined as consuming four or more alcoholic drinks on one or more occasion for women and five or more drinks on one or more occasion for men, was responsible for more than half of these deaths and for two thirds of YPLL (2). More than half of alcohol consumed by adults in the United States is in the form of binge drinks (3). Healthy People 2010 (HP2010) (objective no. 26-11c) called for reducing the prevalence of binge drinking among adults (4). An overarching national health goal is to eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population.
To assess binge drinking by sex, age group, race/ethnicity, education level, income level, and disability status at the individual level, as well as geographic disparities in binge drinking at the state level, CDC analyzed data from the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) on binge drinking prevalence, frequency (i.e., the average number of binge drinking episodes), and intensity (i.e., the average largest number of drinks consumed by binge drinkers).
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