Participants were asked to report the number of times in the past three months that they have consumed five or more alcoholic beverages (four or more for females) in a two-hour period. This question adheres to the definition of “binge drinking” put forth by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA, 2004). To create a dichotomous version for inclusion in the LCA analyses, participants reporting binge drinking at least once per week were considered to be binge drinkers. Weekly frequency of binge drinking was analyzed as a continuous variable for purposes of comparison across classes generated by the LCA.
