These researchers investigated factors and outcomes associated with patterns of alcohol use among a sample of 1702 Māori secondary school students from the 2007 national youth health survey. Among current drinkers, 31.5% reported binge drinking (5–9 drinks) and 30.4% reported heavy binge drinking (≥10 drinks) in a 4-hour session in the past 4 weeks. Compared with non-binge drinkers, binge drinkers more frequently reported ‘drinking alcohol was okay for people their age’ (ORbinge 1.9; ORheavy binge 2.4), p<0.0001), had friends that drank alcohol (ORbinge 2.4; ORheavy binge 4.0, p<0.0001), had sourced alcohol from friends (ORbinge 1.7; ORheavy binge 1.2; p=0.002) or from ‘other adults’ (ORbinge 1.6; ORheavy binge 1.7; p=0.0004) and buying their own alcohol (ORbinge 1.7; ORheavy binge 2.8; p<0.0001). Binge drinking was associated with poorer school performance, unsafe sex, unwanted sex, an injury, injuring someone else, motor vehicle crashes and ‘doing things that could cause trouble’. Binge and heavy binge drinkers reported greater difficulty accessing drug and alcohol services (ORbinge 2.30; ORheavy binge 4.97; p<0.0001).
