Who drinks in America?

More than 60% of American adults drink, but the number really climbs among highly educated, high-income white men, according to data released Tuesday by the National Center for Health Statistics.

The survey was conducted from 2005-07 and is a nationally representative sample. Here are some of the numbers:

• 69.9% of white men drink compared with 57.3% of black men and 55.3% of Asian men.
• 59% of white women drink compared with 40.2% of black women and 31.8% of Asian women.
• Among adults with a graduate degree, 73.9% drink compared with 44.3% of adults with less than a high school diploma.
• Among people with a college degree, more than 70% of men and 60% of women drink.
• Among adults with family incomes four times the poverty level or more, 72.6% drink compared with 45.2% of adults with family incomes below the poverty level.
• Adults in the upper family-income groups were more likely to have had five or more drinks in a day at least once in the last year compared with adults in lower family-income groups.
• Fourteen percent of American adults describe themselves as former drinkers.

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Ricardo DeAratanha  /  Los Angeles Times

Comments

[flop flip]

These numbers are suspicious...and they are contrary to all
informal surveys...

[anon]

There is a difference between causation and correlation. Perhaps the reason those with higher educations are more likely to drink is because they have the spending money to do so...