Frequency of Alcohol Use (Table 7.6)

Table 7.6 indicates that approximately 7% of those aged 12 or older represented in this table17 were daily or almost daily drinkers: That is, they consumed alcohol on 20 or more days in the past month. Males were more likely than females to drink daily or almost daily in the past month. Daily alcohol use was more than twice as likely among adults older than 34 years compared with those aged 18 to 25; a small percentage of youths aged 12 to 17 (only 0.8%) reported daily or almost daily drinking. Daily drinking was more than twice as prevalent among whites as among either blacks or Hispanics, whose frequencies of drinking were about equal. Daily drinking was more prevalent in large metropolitan than in nonmetropolitan areas. Rates of drinking 20 to 30 days and 5 to 19 days did not differ across regions. With regard to adult education, the lowest rate of daily drinking occurred among persons who had not completed high school, and college graduates were two to three times more likely to use alcohol daily or almost daily.

17 Past month alcohol users who left the question on number of days they drank during the past 30 days blank were excluded from Table 7.6. Thus, the actual unweighted n's in Table 7.6 are smaller than those that appear in Table 1.1 because of nonresponse to the question on days of use.

This page was last updated on December 30, 2008.