By birth cohort, among men, prevalence of current drinking decreased over time (<1925 and 1925–1935 birth cohorts) or remained stable (1936–1945 birth cohort), except in the baby boom cohort (1946–1954 birth cohort) where prevalence increased sharply, on average, 8.1% per year between 2006 and 2009 when they started turning age 60 (APC p=0.04) and subsequently remained stable for 5 years. Among women prevalence decreased in the two earlier cohorts and remained stable in the two more recent cohorts. When we examined birth cohorts stratified by age groups between 1997 and 2014, based on non-overlapping confidence intervals, the baby boomer cohort had, on average, the highest prevalence of current drinking among men age 60–64 and among women age 60–64 and 65–69 (Figure 2, Table S15); a caveat is that the oldest baby boomers reached age 68 in 2014, so no comparisons can be made between baby boomers and other birth cohorts in older age groups.
