Drinking context and alcohol’s harm from others among men and women in the 2010 US National Alcohol Survey

Abstract

Background: Little is known about how drinking in different contexts is associated with harms from someone else's drinking, including marital problems, financial problems, and assault. We examined how drinking in four different contexts was associated with alcohol's harm from others (AHFO). Methods: We utilized the landline sample of the 2010 US National Alcohol Survey (n = 5885) to examine associations between drinking context and AHFO using weighted binary logistic regression. Results: For women, drinking when friends dropped over was positively associated with assault and financial troubles due to someone else's drinking. Drinking when friends dropped over was negatively associated with assault for men. For men, drinking at a bar, party, or during a quiet evening at home were each significantly associated with more assault by someone who had been drinking. Bar drinking among women was significantly associated with more marital problems, whereas drinking at a party at someone else's home was associated with significantly less marital problems. Conclusions: Context-specific drinking has differential associations with specific types of harms from someone else's drinking for men and women. Additional research on drinking context, relationship to the harmer, and violence experienced by men and women is needed.