ER visits related to underage drinking spike on New Years Day

I don't want to end 2010 on a down note, but I do want to share a timely story I read on HealthDay this morning.

The number of emergency department visits that involved underage drinking jumped by more than 250 percent on New Year's Day two years ago, compared with other days of the year, a new U.S. study reveals.

Researchers with the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that an estimated 1,980 emergency visits on Jan. 1, 2009, had something to do with underage drinking. The national average for such visits during the year as a whole was 546 per day.

Compared with other national holidays, the number of admissions on New Year's Day linked to underage drinking was 191 percent higher than on Memorial Day and 110 percent higher than on the Fourth of July, the researchers explained.

The article ends with a link to Make a difference: Talk to your child about alcohol. Other parenting resources are linked on the Prevention WINS website.

Underage drinking hospital visits

The 2008 Drug Awareness Warning Network estimates that on an average day, there were 519 hospital emergency department visits involving underage alcohol use. For the 3-day Memorial Day weekend, however, the number of daily ED visits jumped to 577, an increase of 11 percent.

"Underage drinking poses an enormous public health risk -- approximately 5,000 people die each year from alcohol-related injuries connected to underage drinking . . . Moreover, studies have shown that children who begin drinking before age 15 are six times more likely to develop alcohol problems than people who start drinking after they reach age 21," says Pamela S. Hyde, J.D., the Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.