| . |
 |
| . |
 |
| . |
 |
| . |
 |
| . |
 |
| . |
 |
| . |
 |
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
..Data analysis of the Mountain Empire High School Survey
|
||||||||
| January 12, 2001 | ||||||||
| Profile of the most frequent drinkers | ||||||||
|
||||||||
| Drinking and Driving | ||||||||
| During the 30 days preceding the survey, 30% of the students had ridden at least once with a driver who had been drinking alcohol. Frequent drinkers (56%) were significantly more likely than non-frequent drinkers (23%) to have ridden with a driver who had been drinking alcohol. Males (39%) were more likely than females (23%) to report this behavior. No significant differences in riding with a driver who had been drinking alcohol were identified between White and Hispanic 11th and 12th graders. Twelfth-graders were equally likely as eleventh-graders to ride with a driver who had been drinking. | ||||||||
| During the 30 days preceding the survey, 19% of the students had driven a car or motorcycle after drinking. Frequent drinkers (53%) were significantly more likely than non-frequent drinkers (9%) to drive after drinking. Male students (27%) were significantly more likely than female students (12%) to drive after drinking. White students (22%) were significantly more likely than Hispanic students (5%) to drive a car or motorcycle after drinking. Twelfth-graders were equally likely as eleventh-graders to driver a car or motorcycle after drinking. | ||||||||
| Alcohol Use | ||||||||
| Overall, 83% of students had had at least 1 drink of alcohol during their lifetime (lifetime alcohol use). White students (86%) were significantly more likely than Hispanic students (72%) to report lifetime alcohol use. There was no significant difference in lifetime alcohol use between males and females, or between eleventh grade students and twelfth grade students. | ||||||||
| Alcohol and Other Drugs | ||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| Among frequent drinkers, 57% used marijuana at least monthly compared to only 20% of non-frequent drinkers. As another example, 30% of frequent drinkers had never used marijuana compared to 71% of non-frequent drinkers. Frequent drinkers were also more likely to report daily tobacco use (41%) than non-frequent drinkers (14%). | ||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| Initiation of Alcohol Use | ||||||||
| In Tecate, 37% of students had first drunk alcohol (more than a few sips) before age 13 years. Male students (45%) were significantly more likely than female students (23%) to have drunk alcohol before age 13 years. There was no significant difference in age of initiation of alcohol use between white students and Hispanic students or between eleventh and twelfth grade students. | ||||||||
|
Frequent drinkers were significantly more likely to have had first drink at age 10 or younger (36% of frequent drinkers had first drink at age 8 or younger, and an additional 28% at age 9 or 10). Non-frequent drinkers were significantly more likely to have never had a drink (22%) or to have had their first drink between age 13 and 16 (31% at age 13 or 14 and 23% at age 15 or 16). |
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| Access to alcohol in Mexico | ||||||||
| Of the students in the 11th and 12th grades, less than a fifth (18%) of the students had made 20 or more visits to Mexico (Tecate, Tijuana, or other places in Mexico) in the previous 12 months. Hispanic students (84%) were significantly more likely than white students (50%) to have visited Mexico in the previous 12 months. In addition, white students (39%) were significantly more likely than Hispanic students (19%) to have made ten or fewer visits, and Hispanic students were significantly more likely than white students to have made between eleven and twenty visits to Mexico (19% to 6%) and more than 20 visits (47% to 6%). Male and female students were equally likely to have visited Mexico. | ||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| Frequent drinkers (31%) were significantly more likely than non-frequent drinkers (14%) to have made more than 20 visits, and non-frequent drinkers (37%) were significantly more likely than frequent drinkers to have made between one and ten visits to Mexico (17%). | ||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| Of those students in the 11th and 12th grades who had visited Mexico in the previous 12 months, 8% had visited Mexican bars more than 20 times and 10% had bought alcohol at a Mexican liquor store more than 20 times. By contrast, two-thirds reported that they had not visited Mexican bars and 72% had not bought alcohol at Mexican liquor stores. | ||||||||
| Male students were significantly more likely than females to report having been to Mexican bars (43% to 23%) and having purchased alcohol from Mexican liquor stores (38% to 16%). There was no significant difference in the number of times that white students or Hispanic students visited Mexican bars or purchased alcohol at Mexican liquor stores. | ||||||||
| (Note: All ethnic/racial groups were included in the gender comparison, but ethnic comparisons included only white and Hispanic students because there were so few in the four other categories.) | ||||||||
| Prevention Strategies | ||||||||
| For the list of potential strategies to prevent young people from having problems with alcohol, frequent drinkers in grades 11 and 12 were consistently less supportive than non-frequent drinkers. Significant differences in the responses of frequent drinkers and non-frequent drinkers were found for the following four strategies: suggestions to promote parties without alcohol, increase enforcement of underage drinking laws, increase enforcement of drinking laws for all ages (i.e., drunk driving), and border checks (returning from Mexico with alcohol). Frequent drinkers said that these strategies would not help prevent problems with alcohol while non-frequent drinkers said that the strategies would be helpful. | ||||||||
