Determinants Of Sustained Binge Drinking In Young Adults, An Essay, Explores Factors.

Discuss About The Determinants Of Sustained In Young Adults.

Young adults between the age of 12 and 20 indulge themselves in varied types of behaviours (Popovici & French, 2013). A major social challenge arise when young adults involves themselves in “binge drinking”. It has been estimated that 11% of the young adults consume a country’s alcohol in any given year. Male young adults drinking 5 or more drinks and female drinking 4 or more is termed as binge drinking (Wellman et. al., 2014). The scope of this study analyses project for intervention as lock-out laws that affect binge drinking behaviours amongst young adults.

The scope of this current project is meant at evaluating ways in which newly applied lock-out laws in New South Wales is altering binge drinking behavioral patterns amongst young adults. The project will aim at statistical analysis of data collected from various police stations across Sydney CBD to understand drinking related violence before and after application of the law. Majority of violent behaviour takes place after drinking and after 1.30 am. Young adults cases reported in violence have been seen to be dramatically altered before and after the law. The project will then aim at correlating diversified data obtained to form findings related to the case. This will help evaluate impacts of lock out laws on binge drinking behaviours in young adults.

The current problem area that is being diagnosed is binge drinking amongst young adults has increased significantly with availability of alcohol in pubs, hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs. In most cases binge drinking has been known to have long term health impacts (Buchmann et. al, 2009). This rising social issue has to be addressed for a better and healthier future of young adult population. Underage drinking patterns is a serious public health problem in Australia, with alcohol being the most widely used material for abuse amongst its youth. It has been known to pose high amounts of safety and health risks and also has significant behavioral outcomes on aggressive behaviours, injuries, property damage, violence and even sometimes deaths. It has been estimated that by the age of 15 years nearly 33% of teens have consumed almost 1 drink, this factor rises with age as by 18 years of age almost 60% must have consumed a drink.       

Binge drinking has been seen to have various long term health related outcomes. Research depicts that kids who drink perform poorly in their schools. Such drinking habits have been known to affect growth, sexual development as well as brain development (Courtney &  Polich, 2009). Excessive drinking during young age have associated outcome later in life term. It can impact on memory and have physical health consequences as heart problems and obesity. It has been linked to abdominal fat later in life term and being overweight by lower good cholesterol in the body (Wells et. al., 2010). Moreover excessive drinking has been associated with violent behavioral outcomes. All research in the area has been focused on analysing outcome associated with health of the young individual however there are no literatures that can demonstrate outcome of behaviour associated with binge drinking behavioral patterns. The scope of this study will evaluate direct impacts of lock out law on drinking patterns of young adults and significant demonstration of reduction n in violence related crimes in a particular area.     

Problem Area: Binge Drinking Amongst Young Adults

The long term benefits of the proposed project to the scientific community and society is immense. It will help predict behavioral patterns of young adults with a quantity of alcohol in their blood. It will help analyze impacts of alcohol induced behaviours in young adults, who have been drinking regularly and amongst those who have been seldom drinking (Blazer & Wu, 2009). Post binge drinking young adults who have driven cars or undertaken any activity have been known to cause accidents. Hence, this study can have direct implications to crimes and can help police authorities identify evidences with ease.     

The proposed project will be conducted in the given manner as per a Project Plan. A Project Plan highlights details regarding an ongoing project as per the following;

Aims or Objectives of the Project: The research project will aim at analyzing behavioral outcomes amongst young adults as a result of binge drinking, post application of lock-out law. 

Description of Setting, Participants and Resources: The research will be conducted in main areas of Sydney CBD, where there are maximum reported crime related and accident cases posts drinking behaviours. The scholar will aim at two types of data collection one comprising of secondary data from police sources related to crime including young adults in the area prior to application of lock-out law. Second data will include primary data research where the scholar will himself interview young adult population in the area. The data collected will maintain all possible secrecy of information. Approximately data will be collected for over a period of 10 days, with a minimum of attempted population comprising of 200 young adults. Out of 200 young adults approached, only 50 of them responded in a positive manner regarding their friends or family person they know. Most of them were fearful regarding the consequences they would face if they disclosed such information. 50 interested participants was called in a nearby coffee shop and treated with coffee and snacks. They would be provided a certificate of participation from the University as a token of appreciation for their participation. For the first day, they were briefed regarding existing procedure and questions they will be asked for the study. The process of interview started the following day with interviewing each participant with a set of 20 questions each. The entire interview was conducted in 2 slots over 2 day period. Interview comprised of mostly open ended questions that participants had to answer.           

Impact of Binge Drinking on Health and Behavior

These data randomly collected will include a set of questions being asked to participants regarding number of drinks they had taken, any cases of violent or crime or accident they had witnessed and so on. Prior to collecting information from participants, they will be informed that their names or identity will not be disclosed during publishing of the research work. All data collected will be recorded in a handbook as well as by means of a recorder. The data will reflect versatile information which will be assembled and then statistical

 Tests will be conducted on them. For every participant an alcohol breath tester will be carried along, the scholar will consider only those cases that have above 40 mg/100 ml of air of alcohol in their blood. The participant’s data had been collected using resources as note pad, pen, alcohol breath tester, computer, internet connection and SPSS software. All resources were put into effective use to make sure that the collected data is put to effective use. The scholar will make use of several literatures that have conducted similar research in the domain. The literature will provide valuable source of information for the entire project.    

Experimental Design: Anticipated Outcomes: The scholar will make use of positivity research philosophy in order to establish findings. All data quantitative as well as qualitative will be collected and analysed (Bartoli et. al, 2014). While qualitative data will be analysed using inductive techniques, quantitative data will be analysed using statistical tools as SPSS analyses. There will be scores assigned to each outcome from which scholar will ascertain calculating correlation, regression score analysis(Czapla et. al., 2015). Level of drinking will be correlated against crime and accident rates. A test for multi-variance will be conducted meaning multi-ANOVA. Then findings will be analysed to arrive at a conclusion related to the study aims.

Anticipated outcomes for the research will be that there is a declining trend amongst young adults involving in drinking habits. These promising declining drinking trends however have minimum impacts on rate of crime and accidents in Sydney CBD area. The research will aim at analysing effects of health along with crime and accident related outcomes per young adult of the population.   

Mental and physiological health science has made immense contribution to tis domain and project. These disciplines have made contributions to understanding of behaviour related young adult binge drinking(Harrison, Desai & McKee, 2008). Mental health disciplines helps understand behavioral related issues and other psychological challenges related to crimes. Whereas physiological sciences allows understanding related to health impacts that can arise due to excessive drinking(Wong, Kipke & Weiss, 2008). Both the sciences together can help understand outcomes from drinking behaviours. Young adults have been noted to be vulnerable to depict varied complex types of reactions post drinking.       

Conclusion

The project once completed can help reveal various types of behaviours that are exhibited post drinking. This study once conducted can provide with several guidelines that can be accommodated to prevent binge drinking behaviours amongst young adults. IT can also create direction to spread awareness related to the same.    

Reference Lists

Bartoli, F., Carretta, D., Crocamo, C., Schivalocchi, A., Brambilla, G., Clerici, M. and Carrà, G., 2014. Prevalence and correlates of binge drinking among young adults using alcohol: a cross-sectional survey. BioMed research international, 2014.

Blazer, D.G. and Wu, L.T., 2009. The epidemiology of at-risk and binge drinking among middle-aged and elderly community adults: National Survey on Drug Use and Health. American Journal of Psychiatry, 166(10), pp.1162-1169.

Buchmann, A.F., Schmid, B., Blomeyer, D., Becker, K., Treutlein, J., Zimmermann, U.S., Jennen-Steinmetz, C., Schmidt, M.H., Esser, G., Banaschewski, T. and Rietschel, M., 2009. Impact of age at first drink on vulnerability to alcohol-related problems: testing the marker hypothesis in a prospective study of young adults. Journal of psychiatric research, 43(15), pp.1205-1212.

Courtney, K.E. and Polich, J., 2009. Binge drinking in young adults: Data, definitions, and determinants. Psychological bulletin, 135(1), p.142.

Czapla, M., Simon, J.J., Friederich, H.C., Herpertz, S.C., Zimmermann, P. and Loeber, S., 2015. Is binge drinking in young adults associated with an alcohol-specific impairment of response inhibition?. European addiction research, 21(2), pp.105-113.

Harrison, E.L., Desai, R.A. and McKee, S.A., 2008. Nondaily smoking and alcohol use, hazardous drinking, and alcohol diagnoses among young adults: findings from the NESARC. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 32(12), pp.2081-2087.

Popovici, I. and French, M.T., 2013. Binge drinking and sleep problems among young adults. Drug & Alcohol Dependence, 132(1), pp.207-215.

Wellman, R.J., Contreras, G.A., Dugas, E.N., O'loughlin, E.K. and O'loughlin, J.L., 2014. Determinants of sustained binge drinking in young adults. Alcoholism: clinical and experimental research, 38(5), pp.1409-1415.

Wells, B.E., Kelly, B.C., Golub, S.A., Grov, C. and Parsons, J.T., 2010. Patterns of alcohol consumption and sexual behavior among young adults in nightclubs. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 36(1), pp.39-45.

Wong, C.F., Kipke, M.D. and Weiss, G., 2008. Risk factors for alcohol use, frequent use, and binge drinking among young men who have sex with men. Addictive Behaviors, 33(8), pp.1012-1