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19 was the magic number recently. When one of the latest Eurobarometers polls were released on EU citizen’s attitudes towards alcohol we were told the figure was the percentage of Irish people who binge drink. Three times the EU average, we were told.

We found 19% used in the report referring to Ireland. It was on the question “On a day when you drink alcoholic beverages, how much do you usually drink?” and 19% answered “5 – 6 drinks.” There’s a few problems with The Irish Time’s saying 19% is the ”Percentage of Irish people who binge drink, three times the EU average.”

First, the answer in the poll only included “those who claimed to have drunk alcohol in the last 30 days.” So, if everything else was correct, the percentage would relate to Irish drinkers, not the general population. There’s a big difference. The raw data in the survey shows 24% of Irish people polled said they abstained from drinking (an increase of 2% since the last survey, not that that’s too note worthy).

Another flaw with the 19% is that another 5% of Irish drinkers said they usually had 7 – 9 drinks in the one sitting, and 2% said they had 10 or more drinks. Given that the study defines ‘binge drinking’ as ”having 5 or more on at least one occasion,” that brings the figure up to 26%, not 19%. Ireland had a high level of people who answered ”it depends”, 4%, so the figure could be higher again. Although, it’s still of Irish drinkers, not Irish people in general.

It is a bit unfair highlighting any one outlet for this as news and other sections of many media outlets pounced on the 19% figure. Outlets across broadcast, in print, and online. The message was that the Irish are the biggest binge drinkers in the EU. And what’s wrong with this?

It leaves out the wider picture. As above, another 5% of Irish drinkers polled also answered 7 – 9 drinks, and 2% said 10 or more drinks. This compares with the UK, where 6% said 7 – 9 drinks, and 6% said 10 or more.  Although, the level in the 5-6 bracket  in the UK at 12% is lower than in Ireland.

The UK total is 24%, 2% more than the Irish total, but the UK has a higher level of people why say they drink more when they binge — making the problem worse.

The UK had a lower level of people who abstained, making the problem slightly worse again. For the record, among drinkers, Denmark and Finland had a total of 23% of binge drinkers, 10% is the EU average.  And Denmark, Finland and the UK had lower levels of people abstaining, so the amount of drinkers who binged was closer to the actual population.

Total percentages can be misleading. For example, a problem can appear larger than it is by comparing one country with another when both have different factors. While more people abstain in one country, in another a country less people may abstain and where less abstain fully they are likely to be more who drink less. Thus changing the stats in one country, making comparing directly less valid.

More people causally drinking with more relaxed drinking culture (in cafes, with dinner, in streets, with larger time windows to access etc) could also easily distort the stats when it come to blunt comparing country-to-country. They may still be a large amount of binge drinking in may of these countries, but the large amount of relaxed drinking distorts the stats, making the percentage smaller. If Ireland had the same culture of drinking as these countries then the percentage of binge drinks could be the lower, but the actual amount of binge drinkers could be the same or higher, the problem is the same or worse, just hidden in misleading stats.

The UK is not the only example, Denmark at 5%, and Belgium, Finland and others at 4% all were above Ireland at just 2% when it came to regularly drinking 10 drinks or more on one sitting.

As readers of Bad Science will know, facts often gets twisted around between the fact people and the journalists. In this case, the European Commission in Ireland said:

“Despite the end of the Celtic Tiger a survey released today shows that 19% of Irish people admit to binge drinking; the highest in the EU.”

So, the European Commission even twisted their own facts. How many journalists were lead from this rather than reading the report?

Journalists should know better than just reading a press release. There’s little to no excuse for not searching up at least the relevant sections of the survey document when it’s available.

The full report (PDF) — for those who managed to read, glance over it, or search ‘Ireland’ in the PDF version available online — also said:

“Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Spain have all seen a decrease in the percentage of those who have 5 or more drinks at least once a week and an increase in the percentage who say they have that many drinks less often than once a month or never. Nevertheless, Ireland, Austria and Spain remain among the Member States with above EU average levels of binge drinking”.

The table shows that, in Ireland, all categories of drinking are down since the last survey in 2006. Most showing a 1-2% drop, more notably the bracket for 7-9 drinks on one sitting is down 4%, those saying less then one drink is up 7%. In any case, headlines saying “binge drinking down” don’t quite have the same ring to them.

Binge drinking may still be a problem, but we’re clearly being given a muddled picture.