Effects of binge drinking on the adolescent brain

Effects of Binge Drinking on the Adolescent Brain

1. Introduction While young people have always experimented with new things during the formative years of their lives including using illicit drugs alcohol, but most do not continue to abuse these substances to the point of endangering their health or even their lives. Things may be changing for the worse though. Indeed, many clinicians are warning that the combination of the ongoing Covid-19 global pandemic, a turbulent political environment and the growing threat of climate change have created a veritable tsunami of mental health disorders in the United States among young people. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that significant percentages of adolescents are currently engaging in unhealthy behaviors, including drinking alcohol to excess in what is termed “binge drinking.” In this regard, Jones, Lueras and Nagel (2018) advise that, “Binge drinking is a pattern of alcohol drinking that raises a person’s blood alcohol concentration to at least .08%, which amounts to consuming five alcoholic drinks for men and four alcoholic drinks for women in about 2 hours” (p. 87). In addition, and as discussed further below, there are some other defining characteristics of binge drinking that can help identify those adolescents who are at great risk of experiencing adverse health effects, including damage to their brains, but there remains a paucity of timely and relevant community-based programming that are designed to address this critical problem. These trends make it clear that more needs to be done to help young people avoid the potential health hazards, up to and including death, that are associated with binge drinking and these issues are discussed further below. 1.1 Background to the study The data concerning the prevalence of adolescent binge drinking in recent years, even before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, has been troubling for clinicians and policymakers alike. In fact, nearly 61% of all adolescents in the United States reported having engaged in binge drinking at least once during the previous 30-day period in 2017 (Pyhtila, 2020). In other words, the problem of adolescent binge drinking is well documented but remains firmly in place across the country today, a reality that is directly related to the purpose of the research proposed herein as discussed below. 1.2 Purpose of the research The purpose of the proposed research is to provide identify cost-effective, efficacious community-based interventions that can help reduce the prevalence of adolescent binge drinking in the United States. The proposed research will also be guided by the following research questions: · What factors are most responsible for adolescent drinking? · What evidence-based interventions have been used to treat binge-drinking adolescents in the past? · How can parents help? · How can healthcare and civic leaders partner to provide cost-effective, efficacious community-based interventions to adolescents at risk of becoming binge drinkers? 1.3 Significance of the study A growing body of evidence indicates that excessive alcohol use in general and binge drinking in particular during adolescence can have a severe impact on the human brain which invariably have deleterious repercussions later in life. For instance, according to Jones et al. (2018), “Binge drinking during adolescence may cause a delay in the maturation of both gray and white matter, resulting in poorer sustained attention. Furthermore, binge drinking adolescents and young adults have demonstrated impaired performance on a variety of learning and memory tasks” (p. 88). Moreover, adolescents and young adults tend to experience even greater pressures to engage in binge drinking during their college careers. Here again, the latest statistics do not take into account the impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, but what is known at present is that in 2016, approximately 38% of college students in the United States reported engaging in binge drinking during the period 30-day period (Pyhtila, 2020). Taken together, it is apparent that the country is faced with a profound public health challenge moving forward. 2. Literature Review Some of the other defining characteristics of binge drinking include drinking to excess at higher frequencies compared to heavy drinking, meaning that individuals engage in these activities five or more times during the previous 30-day period (Jones et al., 2018). Unfortunately, binge drinking is also the most common type of alcohol abuse among adolescents in the United States at present (Jones et al., 2018). While binge drinking and/or heaving drinking in isolation from other types of substance abusing activities is not sufficient to satisfy the diagnostic criteria for alcohol use disorder, binge drinking can cause significant neurobiological changes together with an elevated risk of developing alcohol use disorder at some point later in life (Jones et al., 2018). Although researchers invariably call for additional studies in this area, the research to date has been consistent in identifying an association between the frequency and quantities of alcohol consumed and the amount of gray matter in specific regions of the brain, with increased usage related to diminished gray matter in adolescents (Jones et al., 2018). While there has been some modest progress made in addressing this problem (Underage drinking, 2021), far too many adolescents continue to engage in heavy drinking and binge drinking episodes for a constellation of reasons, but there are some demographic differences that are involved that must be taken into account. For example, the findings that emerged from the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that binge drinking is more common among white and Hispanic adolescents (7.1% and 6.3%, respectively) compared to blacks and Asians (3.6% and 1.5%, respectively (Chung, Creswell, Bachrach et al., 2018). Likewise, while male adolescents are at greater risk, the prevalence of alcohol abuse adolescent females is also increasing (Dir, Bell, Adams et al., 2017). These findings underscore the importance of using an appropriate methodology to achieve the proposed study’s aims and this is discussed further below. 3. Methodology Social science researchers have a number of different methodological strategies available to them, including qualitative and quantitative approaches (Silverman, 2005) as well as methodologies that combine the best qualities of both of these research traditions (Gratton & Jones, 2010). On the one hand, qualitative methodologies rely on non-numeric data such as ethnographies, historical analyses, phenomenological studies, hermeneutics, field-based case studies, grounded theory and action research (Burton & Steane, 2004). On the other hand, quantitative methods rely on number-driving data and include questionnaires and experiments (Neuman, 2008). For the purpose of the proposed study, a mixed methods approach was deemed most appropriate. The rationale in support of this decisions was based on the multiple benefits of a mixed methods approach, including the following: · Mixed methods compare quantitative and qualitative data so are especially useful in understanding relationships and contradictions between quantitative results and qualitative findings; · Mixed methods reflect participants’ point of view; · Mixed methods give a voice to study participants and ensure that study findings are grounded in participants’ real-world experiences; · Mixed methods foster scholarly interaction by adding breadth to multidisciplinary team research by encouraging the interaction of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods scholars. · Mixed methods provide methodological flexibility. Mixed methods have great flexibility and are adaptable to many study designs, such as observational studies and randomized trials, to elucidate more information than can be obtained in only quantitative research. · Mixed methods collect rich, comprehensive data. Mixed methods also mirror the way individuals naturally collect information—by integrating quantitative and qualitative data. For example, sports stories frequently integrate quantitative data (scores or number of errors) with qualitative data (descriptions and images of highlights) to provide a more complete story than either method would alone (adapted from Wisdom, 2013). The qualitative data that will be used in the proposed research will be comprised of secondary sources such as government reports and analyses, relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly resources and independent health care facilities that are focused on treating adolescent binge drinking using a literature review approach. A systematic and well-conducted review of the literature for this purpose can provide a number of valuable outcomes, including the following: · It provides insights into the topic of interest that are both methodological and substantive; · It demonstrates powers of critical analysis by, for instance, exposing taken for granted assumptions underpinning previous research and identifying the possibilities of replacing them with alternative assumptions; · It justifies any new research through a coherent critique of what has gone before and demonstrates why new research is both timely and important · It helps describe a topic of interest and refine either research questions or directions in which to look; · It presents a clear description and evaluation of the theories and concepts that have informed research into the topic of interest; · Finally, a literature can help clarify the relationship to previous research and highlights where new research may contribute by identifying research possibilities which have been overlooked so far in the literature (Wood & Ellis, 2003). The quantitative data for the proposed research project will consist of the findings that emerge from a custom questionnaire concerning adolescent binge drinking directed at the parents of binge-drinking adolescents to gain new insights that might otherwise go undiscerned which can help develop informed answers to the guiding research questions outlined above. The questionnaire will be posted online using a survey service such as SurveyMonkey to facilitate data collection. Prospective respondents for participation in the proposed research will be recruited as described in the data collection section below. 3.1 Sampling Achieving the intended outcome of the proposed study is worthwhile for a number of reasons that transcend the medical issues that are consistently associated with excessive alcohol consumptions and include helping young people avoid the types of bad decisions that will have lifelong implications, reducing the health burden on American communities and enhancing the ability of young people to realize their full academic, professional and personal abilities in their adult lives. 3.2 Data Collection The qualitative data that will be used in the proposed study will be collected from online academic resources such as EBSCOHost and JSTOR as well as university and public library resources. The quantitative data from the custom questionnaire will be collected through selected online forums such as Reach Out (https://forums.parents.au.reachout. com/t5/Concerned-about-my-teen/Drugs-and-alcohol/td-p/16560). A post will be made in each forum explaining the purpose of the research, the importance of having parents participate, and will include a hyperlink to the online questionnaire. Although no compensation will be offered in return for respondents’ participation in the proposed study, all respondents will be offered a copy of the findings that are presented in the final study upon request. In addition, all respondents will also be assured of their anonymity throughout the research process. 3.3 Data Analysis The quantitative data that results from the administration of the online questionnaire will be analyzed using the analytical tools provided by SurveyMonkey or comparable survey service. This quantitative data will be presented in tabular and graphic formats, followed by a narrative interpretation of the results. 3.4 Ethical Considerations Any research that involves human subjects carries some significant ethical considerations (Neuman, 2008), but the fact that all respondents to the online custom questionnaire will remain anonymous throughout the research process provides the protections required by the relevant institutional review board. 3.5 Limitations of your research There are no easy solutions to adolescent binge drinking, otherwise the problem would have been solved millennia ago and the proposed study likewise is anticipated to have some specific limitations. These limitations include the inability to verify the age and parental status of the custom questionnaire respondents due to the anonymity assured by their online forums. In addition, even the most rigorous longitudinal studies are only able to analyze a miniscule percentage of binge-drinking adolescents over time. These constraints mean that the findings that emerge from the synthesis of the qualitative and quantitative data must recognize these limitations and include a disclaimer to that effect in the final study’s results which will be disseminated as described below. 4. Dissemination of results The key findings that emerge from the synthesis of the qualitative and quantitative data will be used to create a PowerPoint presentation that can be used by community groups, health care facilities and young person advocates to help raise awareness about the prevalence and dangers of adolescent binge drinking. The PowerPoint presentation will be made available in both DVD format as well as a digital version that can be transmitted online. In addition, the findings will also be used to create a Web site that is dedicated to reducing the prevalence of adolescent substance abuse in general and alcohol abuse in particular which will be hosted by a free service such as Wix or GoDaddy.