Our finding that for some outcomes, such as prevalence of binge drinking among women, which significantly increased in the three youngest age groups (60–64, 65–69, 70–74) but not the older, underscores the importance of not ‘lumping’ older adults into homogeneous groups. The term “older” generally is used to apply to those people ages 60+ up to the oldest age that a person is known to have survived (122 years of age, Jeanne Louise Calment) (Robine and Allard, 1998). Gerontologists have split this 60+ age range into subdivisions in order to establish less heterogeneous subgroups. However, there is no universal agreement on what the subdivisions should be. Examples of subdivisions that have been used formally or informally include: young-old (60–69), middle-old (70–79), and very-old (80+) (Forman et al., 1992) (which corresponds to the age groups used in our study); young-old (65–74), middle-old (75–84), and oldest-old (85+) (Seccombe and Ishii-Kuntz, 1991); and, old (65–84) and oldest-old (85+) (National Institute on Aging, 2007). In terms of alcohol research, the importance is not necessarily which characterization is best, but rather that some characterization is considered as studies often group together adults age 60+ or 65+.
