Drinking patterns and problems and drinking in the injury event: an analysis of emergency room patients by ethnicity

While a substantial literature exists on the association of alcohol consump tion and injury, less is known about the context in which drinking occurs w ithin specific ethnic groups in the United States. This paper analyzes drin king patterns, alcohol-related problems and drinking-in-the-event variables among a probability sample of 359 black, 528 Hispanic and 458 white patien ts who were breathalyzed and interviewed after admission to the emergency r oom. Injured patients among both Hispanics and whites were more likely to b e positive on the breathalyzer and to report heavy drinking and more freque nt drunkenness during the preceding year than their non-injured counterpart s. Blacks were less likely than either Hispanics or whites to report a larg er number of drinks prior to injury, feeling drunk at the time, or a causal association of alcohol and the injury event. These data suggest a differen tial role of alcohol in injury occurrence within ethnic groups, with alcoho l possibly playing less of a role in the injury event for blacks than for H ispanics or whites.