The CDC Vital Signs topic for October (2010) is binge drinking, a common and dangerous behavior that is not a well-recognized public health problem.

CDC Vital Signs provides the most recent data on key indicators of important health topics. Data are generated from CDC’s national surveillance systems in order to inform the public about progress in key areas of public health and ways they can promote their own health and prevent or control disease. Vital Signs tracks recent progress in improving population health for one of 12 key diseases, conditions or risk factors. Progress can be tracked from year to year and the same health topics will appear the same month each year.

Binge Drinking

What is Binge Drinking?

• Binge drinking means men drinking 5 or more alcoholic drinks or women drinking 4 or more drinks during a short period of time.
• Drinking too much alcohol, including binge drinking, causes more than 79,000 deaths in the US each year.
• Binge drinking increases the chances of motor vehicle crashes, violence against others, HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), unplanned pregnancy, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and babies born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

Who Binge Drinks?

• More than 33 million US adults binge drink each year. Binge drinking is most common in men, 18-34 year olds, whites, and people with household incomes of $75,000 or higher.
• Binge drinking among adults has not declined for more than 15 years.
• More than 2 in 3 high school students who drink alcohol report binge drinking during the past month.

Call to Action

This issue of CDC Vital Signs on binge drinking includes direct calls to action for:

• The US Government to promote programs and policies that work to prevent binge drinking and to provide states and communities with information and tools to put into practice prevention strategies that work.

• States and community leaders to promote evidence-based policies and develop programs to prevent binge drinking.

• Doctors, nurses, and other providers to screen patients for binge drinking and use brief interventions and motivational interviewing techniques to reduce problem drinking.

• All people to choose not to binge drink themselves and help others not to do it.

More details on what can be done to prevent binge drinking are available at:http://www.cdc.gov/VitalSigns/BingeDrinking/