title: Alcohol use and heavy episodic drinking prevalence and predictors among national samples of American eighth- and tenth-grade students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Given the public health impact of adolescent alcohol use and heavy episodic drinking, we sought to identify the prevalence of types of alcohol use among national samples of 8th- and 10th grade American students. In addition, a range of known risk factors was used to predict the most problematic type: heavy episodic use.
  
  
  METHODS
  Monitoring the Future data on lifetime, past-year, and past-30-day alcohol use and on past-2-week heavy episodic drinking were available for 505,668 students from 1991 to 2007 (weighted N = 505,853; 51.5% girls; 65.3% White, 12.3% Black, 11.1% Hispanic). Logistic regression was then used in a representative subsample of 110,130 students to predict heavy episodic drinking in the previous 2 weeks.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the most recent cohorts, about 1 in 10 8th graders and 1 in 5 10th graders had engaged in heavy episodic drinking in the past 2 weeks. Explanatory variables in logistic regression were largely invariant across cohort, grade level, gender, and race/ethnicity, accounting for 48% of the variance in heavy episodic drinking.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Heavy episodic drinking continues to be a prevalent behavior among the nation's youth, with consistent risk factors over time, highlighting the continued necessity of effective screening and prevention efforts.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106-1248, USA. meganpat@isr.umich.edu
authors.forename: Megan E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Patrick
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Schulenberg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015995:Prevalence; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology