High Risk Alcohol Consumption
Objectives: We used several different guidelines for appropriate alcohol use to identify patterns of high-risk alcohol consumption among older women and men and examined associations between these patterns and late-life alcohol use problems.
Methods: A sample of 1291 older adults participated in a survey of alcohol consumption and alcohol use problems and was studied again 10 years later.
Results: Depending on the guideline, 23% to 50% of women and 29% to 45% of men engaged in potentially unsafe alcohol use patterns. The likelihood of risky alcohol use declined over the 10 years; however, the numbers of drinks consumed per week and per day were associated with alcohol use problems at both assessment intervals.
Conclusion: Our findings imply that guidelines for alcohol consumption should be no more liberal for older men than for older women.

Excessive alcohol consumption is a significant public health problem and contributes to elevated mortality, morbidity, and related health care costs. Accordingly, there have been increasing efforts to identify patterns of high-risk alcohol consumption and examine the associations between these patterns and alcohol use-related symptoms and problems. Most of the studies have focused on mixed-age samples of individuals, have used cross-sectional designs, and have not considered older women and men separately. Thus, we know relatively little about patterns of high-risk alcohol consumption among older individuals, changes in these patterns with age, the association between these patterns and late-life alcohol use problems, or variations in these associations by gender.

To examine these issues, we focus on a community sample of older women and men and address 2 questions: (1) What proportion of older adults who consume alcohol engage in high-risk patterns of consumption, as defined by current standards? Are there gender differences in patterns of high-risk alcohol consumption and in changes in these patterns over time? (2) How well do alternative definitions of high-risk patterns of alcohol consumption predict late-life alcohol use problems, and do these predictions vary by gender or by age?