Dr Karen Norberg Leads Study on Lower Drinking Age and Rates of Long Term Alcohol Use Problems

by Lisa Frederiksen

Alegent Health, Bio-Medicine, Health & Fitness msn.com and other news sources have been reporting on a study titled, Long-Term Effects of Minimum Drinking Age Laws on Past-Year Alcohol and Drug Use Disorders, by Karen E. Norberg, Laura J. Bierut, Richard A. Grucza. Theirs was a study of 33,869 adults who grew up at a time and place when/where it was legal to purchase and drink alcohol under age 21.

Quoting Alegent Health’s breaking health news article:

…The authors found that adults who could legally buy alcohol before the age of 21 years had a higher likelihood of meeting criteria for alcohol use disorder or other drug use disorder (odds ratios, 1.31 and 1.70, respectively), even during middle age.

“These surprisingly strong results are consistent with the hypothesis that late adolescence may be a ’sensitive period’ for an environmental exposure closely tied to the timing of changing minimum legal purchase age laws. However, the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) effects do not seem to be working through age of drinking initiation, per se; instead, we hypothesize that the long-term effects of MLDA exposure may work through the frequency and intensity of drinking or the social networks and social norms around drinking that develop in late adolescence,”…

All three articles share some of the research and findings and are interesting reads. For a full text of the findings, click here (log in and purchase fees do apply).