The Illinois Department of Public Health has released its first-ever comprehensive report on how alcohol is used – and misused – by residents, and it shows that almost one-quarter of high school students use alcohol.

The study is using the data to develop targeted programs and interventions to address alcohol-related health concerns, according to an IDPH announcement.

“This report provides the most detailed picture to date of how alcohol use and misuse affect the health and safety of Illinois residents,” IDPH Director Dr. Sameer Vohra said in a statement. “This report serves as a critical foundation for a more informed, coordinated response to the growing public health challenges posed by alcohol misuse across Illinois.”

Some of the major takeaways in the “Alcohol Use in Illinois” report include:

• Almost 23% of high school students reported consuming at least one alcoholic beverage in the month before being surveyed.

• About 11% reported binge drinking in that time period, with female students being more likely to acknowledge their drinking behaviors than their male peers. Binge drinking is defined as consuming four drinks or more in a few hours for females and five drinks or more in the same period for males, according to the IDPH.

• About 57% of adult respondents said that they had consumed at least one alcoholic beverage in the previous 30 days

• More than 18% of adults surveyed acknowledged binge drinking at least once in that same time frame. Among adults, binge drinking was found to be more common among younger adults ages 18 to 44, with about 25% of respondents reporting they had done it.

Unlike teenagers, adult men were more likely to admit to drinking than adult women, with 62% of men older than 18 reporting drinking in the past month, as opposed to 50% of women.

Across ages, the report has found that both alcohol consumption and binge-drinking rates increase as income levels increase for respondents.

A total of 69% of residents making $75,000 or more per year reported drinking, while only 35% of residents making less than $15,000 per year reported drinking in the previous month.

Finally, members of the LGBTQ+ community were more likely to report binge drinking in the past month than heterosexual/cisgender people, with almost 23% of LGTBQ+ respondents reporting binge drinking, as opposed to 17% of non-LGBTQ+ people.

Dangers and deaths

Other key takeaways from the study revolve around the number of deaths experienced as a result of alcohol, including in traffic incidents.

According to the report, the percentage of people killed in motor vehicle crashes where a driver had alcohol in their system has risen since 2019.

Data from 2022, the most recently available data in the report, showed that 37% of fatal crashes in Illinois involved a driver with a blood-alcohol concentration of at least 0.01, including 32% that included a driver with a BAC of at least 0.08, which is the legal limit for driving under the influence. That number is up 4% since 2019.

Additionally, the study showed that from 2020 to 2023, there were more than 2,300 deaths in Illinois from causes directly attributable to chronic alcohol use, including alcoholic liver disease and alcohol-dependency syndrome.

More than 2,000 additional deaths were from causes indirectly associated with regular alcohol use or in which alcohol use can be a contributing factor, including hypertension, coronary heart disease and liver cancer.

Geographically, the study found that deaths from alcohol-related disease varied by region, with the west-central Illinois region around Peoria having the highest death rate at 5.2 deaths per 100,000 people.

This was double the lowest regional rate in the state at 2.3 deaths per 100,000 people in the Westchester region in the Chicago area.

The report uses data from the Illinois Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, the Illinois Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey, the 2023 Illinois County behavior Risk Factor Survey, the Illinois Vital Records System, the Illinois Pregnancy Risk Assessment Records System, the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Alcohol Policy Information System, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System.