Authors
Chase A Aycock, Indika Mallawaarachchi, Robert C Klesges, Xin-Qun Wang, Daniel G Cassidy, Kara P Wiseman, Andrea E Krunnfusz, Debamita Kundu, Marc A Patience, Rosemary Estevez Burns, G Wayne Talcott
Publication date
2023/9/21
Journal
Military psychology
Pages
1-10
Publisher
Routledge
Description
U.S. surveys demonstrate recent decreases in the prevalence of alcohol use and binge drinking among young adults. The current study aims to determine whether similar trends are evident in a similarly aged cohort of service members in the US Air Force to inform ongoing prevention efforts. Participants were 103,240 Air Force personnel in entry-level training between 2016 and 2019. Participants anonymously completed the AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test) regarding their pre-service drinking. Logistic regression analyses and the Cochran-Armitage test were conducted to measure population trends over the study duration with stratification by age (<21 vs. ≥21) and evaluation of specific alcohol behaviors. Between 2016 and 2019, the proportion of young service members endorsing any alcohol use significantly decreased for both the <21 group (i.e. from 38.9% to 32.6%) and the ≥21 group (i.e …