Differential Discrimination between Five+ Heavy Drinking Measure and Estimated Blood Alcohol Concentration as Measures of Risk Due to Alcohol Consumption in a College Population

Several measurements have been used to assess the relative risk among college populations. One common measure of heavy drinking is the consumption of 5+ drinks at a sitting for men and 4+ drinks for women. The problem with this measure of risk is that it is not sensitive to individual biological differences, and does not account for the time spent drinking leading to a large number of false positives. Estimated BAC, however, does correct for these differences. This study will present a comparison of the ability of these two measures to discriminate among different risk groups.