Youth Summit Participants Reveal Results of Alcohol Purchase Surveys of Retail Establishments

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- At the kick-off of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) National Youth Summit to Prevent Underage Age Drinking today, a new study published in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) was announced showing that people who begin drinking alcohol before they reach the legal age of 21 are significantly more likely to experience alcohol-related traumatic injuries than those who start drinking at 21 or older.

MADD, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, as well as MADD Youth Summit delegates from across the country participated in the event.

Although illegal underage drinking often is accepted as a rite of passage, research shows that six times more young people die from underage drinking than the combined total of those who die from illicit drug use. Underage drinking is the No. 1 youth drug problem, costing society $53 billion each year.

The new JAMA study ("Age of Drinking Onset and Unintentional Injury Involvement After Drinking" by Hingson and others*) examined the relation between the onset of teen drinking and the increased risk of alcohol-related injury during teen and adult years.

Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death among Americans under age 34. In 1998, 94,331 people died in the U.S. from unintentional injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes, falls, drownings, burns and unintended gunshot wounds. Approximately one third of deaths due to unintentional injury were estimated to be alcohol-related. (Centers for Disease Control) An estimated 15,935 died in alcohol-related traffic crashes -- 38 percent of traffic fatalities. (U.S. Department of Transportation) 20,615 were killed in alcohol-related non-traffic incidents. (Annals of Emergency Medicine 1999)

The JAMA study announced today coincided with the start of the MADD National Youth Summit to Prevent Underage Drinking (Sept. 29 - Oct. 4) convening over the next five days near Washington, D.C. where 435 teens -- one representing each congressional district -- will focus on solutions to underage drinking issues and solutions.

Youth Summit topics the teens will address include:

• Why is it so easy to get alcohol? (It is estimated at least 6.9 million jr. and sr. high school students can walk into a store and buy their own alcohol and 12 percent are provided alcohol by their parents.)
• Why does the media glamorize alcohol? (The average youth sees 100,000 alcohol images before 18.)
• How does alcohol affect the adolescent brain?

Youth Summit general sessions along with other Summit information will be broadcast live at www.madd.org/nys.

"Underage drinking is a national public health crisis hiding in plain sight and we cannot afford bury our heads in the sand any longer" said MADD National President Millie I. Webb. "The new JAMA study underscores the need to act now if we want to reduce underage drinking and MADD is pleased that that teens across the country are taking a stand and coming up with their own solutions to this national problem at MADD National Youth Summit."

MADD National Youth Summit participants today released the findings of an alcohol purchase survey of 33 retail establishments in Washington, D.C. underscoring youth easy access to alcohol.

According to Youth Summit participants Marlena Johnson of San Diego and Kendra Edwards of Los Angeles, a group of eight youth summit facilitators conducted the survey this week and found that 39 percent (13) of the 33 on-premise and off-premise establishments did not ask for identification.

Research shows that more than half of junior and senior high school students drink monthly and almost two million teenagers consider themselves heavy drinkers. During a typical weekend, one teen dies each hour in an alcohol-related crash. That is why the Youth Summit will focus on issues related to easy access to alcohol.

"Teens see the devastation of underage drinking every day," said Nicholas Hoff, MADD National Youth Summit delegate from Hollis, New Hampshire. "We're here to give America a wake-up call and demand action and attention to this deadly problem."

At the conclusion of the five-day Youth Summit, the teens will hold a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on the morning of October 3 to unveil their recommendations for how the nation's policymakers should attack the problem of underage drinking. The teens also will release findings of a recent Gallup survey of Americans' attitudes about underage drinking.

The Youth Summit participants also will present their recommendations to Members of Congress during personal visits on Capitol Hill, including a MADD\Dodge Neon Drunk Driving Simulator demonstration at the conclusion of the October 3 news conference.

The JAMA study was conducted by Ralph W. Hingson, Sc.D., and colleagues from the Boston University School of Public Health who analyzed data from a 1992 survey of 42,862 randomly selected adults in the U.S. to find out if those who started drinking at an earlier age were more likely to have experienced unintentional injuries while under the influence of alcohol.

The onset of drinking at an early age has been found to be associated with alcohol dependence. Strategies to delay drinking, such as the minimum legal drinking age of 21, have been found to reduce drinking, alcohol-related traffic deaths, and deaths from other unintentional injuries among people under 21 years of age. The nationwide 21 minimum drinking age law prevents 1,000 traffic deaths each year.

"Relative to respondents who began drinking at age 21 years or older, those who started before age 14 years, as well as those who started at each intervening age up to 21 years, were significantly more likely to have been injured while under the influence of alcohol, even after controlling for history of alcohol dependence, heavy drinking frequency during the period they drank most, family history of alcoholism, and other characteristics associated with earlier onset of drinking," the authors wrote.

"The younger respondents were when they began drinking, the more likely to have been in situations that increased injury risk and to have been injured under the influence of alcohol," said Hingson.

Compared with people who began drinking at the age of 21 or older, those who started drinking before the age of 14 were 4.8 times more likely to have ever been in a situation after drinking that increased their risk of injury, and 4.9 times more likely to have ever been injured after consuming alcohol.

The study found that adults who started drinking before age 14 are 12 times more likely than those starting after age 21 to be injured while under the influence of alcohol. Waiting until age 21 not only helps prevent teen injury, but there are injury reduction benefits throughout the span of the adult life.

The study also found that an earlier onset of drinking was associated with frequent heavy drinking later in life -- not only for people with diagnosable alcohol dependence, but for others, as well. "This, in turn, heightens the risk of alcohol-related injuries for persons both when they are below and above the legal drinking age of 21 years," said Hingson.

The researchers believe their findings offer important information for health care providers to share with patients. "They should explore (when) their patients started to drink and advise ... that people who start drinking at early ages not only have an increased risk of developing alcohol dependence, they also have an increased risk of experiencing motor vehicle and other ... injuries," the authors wrote.

"Recent national surveys indicate that after a decade of decline, the percentage of high school seniors who drink, drink heavily, and drive after drinking has increased in the past 2 years. The study reported here supports efforts to expand clinical, educational, legal, and community interventions that delay onset of drinking," they concluded.

The National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiology Survey was sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sponsored the data analysis for the JAMA article. For more information about the MADD National Youth Summit, visit www.madd.org/nys.

SOURCE: Mothers Against Drunk Driving

WEB SITE: http://www.madd.org/nys/

CO: Journal of the American Medical Association; Mothers Against Drunk Driving; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

ST: District of Columbia