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In a mental health research project, a representative sample of 706 New York City adults was asked about personal drinking behavior and resultant problems. An implicative-drinking index was devised from the 10 relevant questions and scored as follows: present or past drinking problems, 3 points each; too much drinking, 2; and personal reasons for drinking, 1 point each. A score of 3 was selected to identify implicative drinkers. Of the 706, 44 were designated as implicative drinkers, an over-all rate of 62 per 1,000 adults, with a ratio of 2.6 men to 1 woman. The rate of all Whites was 55 (men 91, women 23), Negroes 105 (men 119, women 97); of all Catholics 57 (93 and 23), and of all Protestants 86 (88 and 85). The sex ratio among Negroes was 1.2 to 1, among Whites, 4 to 1. The more vulnerable subgroups were those aged 35–49 years (91 per 1,000 adults); divorced or separated persons (118); less educated men (none to some grade school 133, grade-school graduate 136) ; adults who failed to complete an educational level started (some college 91, men 132, women 43); and among ethnoreligious groups, Puerto Ricans (99, men 212, women 0), Negroes (105, men 119, women 97), and Irish (all adults 103). The least vulnerable were Italians (10) and Jews (37). For the most part, the results corroborated relative prevalence rates of probable alcoholics among subgroups in the Washington Heights Health District of New York City.
Haberman et al. (Fri,) studied this question.