Age at First Use of Alcohol and Risk of Heavy Alcohol Use: A Population-Based Study

Table 2

Estimates from Poisson regression model.

	IRR	(95% conf. interval)
Gender
Male	1.00
Female	0.42	0.38–0.46
Age at first use of alcohol
<12	3.02	2.50–3.65
12–14	2.61	2.30–2.97
15–17	1.93	1.71–2.17
18–24	1.00
≥25	1.44	0.77–2.69
Current age
18-19	1.00
20–25	1.57	1.42–1.73
26–29	1.35	1.17–1.55
30–34	1.39	1.19–1.64
35–49	1.23	1.06–1.41
50–64	1.02	0.84–1.24
65+	0.60	0.42–0.86
Highest education level attained
Less than high school	1.00
High school graduate	1.04	0.90–1.19
Some college	0.91	0.78–1.05
College graduate or above	0.80	0.68–0.93
Total family income
<$20,000	1.00
$20,000–$49,999	0.85	0.76–0.95
$50,000–$74,999	0.89	0.77–1.03
$75,000 or More	0.82	0.72–0.93
Self-rated health status
Excellent	1.00
Very good	1.03	0.93–1.14
Good	1.13	1.00–1.27
Fair	1.40	1.15–1.70
Poor	1.32	0.90–1.92
Kessler score
≤12	1.00
≥13	1.27	1.08–1.48
Marital status
Married	1.00
Widowed	1.01	0.68–1.49
Divorced or separated	1.47	1.25–1.73
Never been married	1.50	1.34–1.68
Language used in the survey
English	1.00
Spanish	0.64	0.50–0.81

IRR: incidence rate ratios.