title: Can we assess blood alcohol levels of attendees leaving professional sporting events?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We measured blood alcohol content (BAC) levels of attendees at professional sporting events and assessed the factors associated with higher BACs.
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted BAC tests of 362 adult attendees following 13 baseball games and three football games. We ran multivariate analyses to obtain factors associated with the risk of having a higher BAC.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this assessment, 40% of the participants had a positive BAC, ranging from 0.005 to 0.217. Those who reported tailgating before the event had 14 times the odds of having a BAC > 0.08 and those under age 35 had nearly 8 times the odds of having a BAC > 0.08 (both compared to a zero BAC). Attendees of Monday night football games were more likely to have positive BACs compared to attendees at all other games.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We found that it is feasible to assess BAC levels of attendees at professional sporting events. Our findings suggest that a significant number of attendees at professional sporting events may have elevated BAC levels, particularly young adults and those who participated in tailgating activities. Further research using a representative sample is warranted to confirm the findings from this preliminary study.
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454, USA. erick232@umn.edu
authors.forename: Darin J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Erickson
authors.forename: Traci L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Toomey
authors.forename: Kathleen M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Lenk
authors.forename: Gunna R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Kilian
authors.forename: Lindsey E A
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Fabian
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000097:blood*; D001484:Baseball; D001944:Breath Tests; D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants / Q000097:blood*; D003625:Data Collection; D000431:Ethanol / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D005538:Football; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012307:Risk Factors; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants; D000431:Ethanol