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Wyoming Shows Highest Rate of Underage Binge Drinking
Wyoming has the highest reported rate of underage binge drinking in the country, nearly four times the rate of nearby Utah, which has the nation's lowest rate. American Addiction Centers' online resource OxfordTreatment.com recently reported the numbers, which are based on an analysis of 2017 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.
The analysis looked at the percentage of young people ages 12 to 18 who had reported consuming four or more drinks in a row within the past month. The states with the highest rates of underage binge drinking were Wyoming (20.65%), Montana, Arizona, Missouri and North Dakota, in that order. Utah had the lowest rate of underage binge drinking (5.53%), followed by New York, Nebraska, South Carolina and Arkansas.
An analysis of binge drinking by age found that 5.3% of 9th-graders engaged in binge drinking. But by 12th grade, the percentage had increased to 21.9%.
Data were collected from the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey, with state-by-state numbers available for 31 states.
