Binge Drinking and Preventive Cancer Screenings Among Women in the United States By Race and Ethnicity

Background and Purpose: Alcohol use is common in the United States with approximately half of all women age 26 and older reporting past month consumption. While previous studies tend to indicate that excessive drinking is associated with lower rates of cancer screening use, information is lacking on this relationship by race/ethnicity. A more detailed understanding of the associations between drinking patterns, cancer screening utilization, race/ethnicity, and other sociodemographic characteristics may lead to better suggestions for increasing preventive care use. Our study explored the relationship between binge drinking and mammogram and Pap-test screening utilization among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White women in the United States.

Methods: We used seven years of data (2003, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2018) from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The samples for this study were the 52,621 women ages 21-64 without a hysterectomy who reported data for Pap test screening utilization and the 40,635 women ages 40-64 with or without a hysterectomy who reported data for mammogram screening. Using logistic regression, we tested the relationship between binge drinking frequency during the past year and Pap test and mammogram screenings by computing odds ratios for utilization for the total sample and each racial/ethnic group (Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White). Covariates included sociodemographic characteristics as well as the presence of psychological distress, chronic health conditions, and smoking status.

Results: In the total sample of 52,621 women, Whites reported the highest rate of binge drinking (25%) followed by Hispanics (14%), Blacks (12%), and Asian Americans (9%). Among Hispanic women, binge drinking frequency was associated with lower odds of mammogram (OR=0.83, 95% CI=0.70-0.99) and Pap test (OR=0.89, 95% CI=0.80-0.99) utilization. Binge drinking was also significantly associated with lower odds of Pap test screening among Whites (OR=0.95, 95% CI=0.91-1.00).

Conclusions and Implications: Our findings suggest that among Hispanic women who engage in binge drinking, approaches are needed to increase screening utilization. Among the overall population, approaches to increase Pap test screening should also target binge drinkers. Additional study of the relationship between alcohol consumption and cancer screening utilization is also needed. In particular, various patterns of alcohol use should be examined to determine if they can uncover other important relationships with screening utilization.