Binge-Drinking Continues to Fall in Young Adults

A recent BBC News story reports that the proportion young adults binge drinking at least once a week is now down from 29% in 2005 to 18% in 2013:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31452735

The figures come from the Office for National Statistics report based on the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) which selects 'sectors' from the post code database and surveys people at 2,010 addresses per month, with a 60% return rate. So it's truly random and a decent sized sample.

The key points of the binge drinking survey were (source: ONS):

• More than one in five adults (21%) said that they do not drink alcohol at all. This has increased slightly since 2005 (19%). Young adults (aged 16 to 24) were primarily responsible for this change, with the proportion of young adults who reported that they do not drink alcohol at all increasing by over 40% between 2005 and 2013.
• The proportion of adults who binged at least once in the week before interview decreased from 18% in 2005 to 15% in 2013. Young adults were mainly responsible for the decrease in binge drinking, with the proportion who had binged falling by more than a third since 2005, from 29% to 18%.
• The proportion of young adults who drank frequently has fallen by more than two-thirds since 2005. Only 1 in 50 young adults drank alcohol frequently in 2013.
• Almost a third of adults in London (32%) said that they do not drink alcohol at all. This was considerably higher than any other region of Great Britain.
• Adults in the north of England and in Scotland who drank in the week before interview were more likely to have binged than adults elsewhere in Great Britain.