City | 8:13 pm | January 6, 2013 | By Pooja Salhotra

‘Hartford-New Haven’ ranked nation’s sixth-drunkest city

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Photo by Wikimedia Commons.

In The Daily Beast’s list of America’s 25 drunkest cities of 2012 released last week, “Hartford-New Haven” took sixth place, following Boston, Norfolk, Milwaukee, Charleston and Austin.

The rankings were determined from the average number of alcoholic drinks consumed per adult per month, as well as statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the percentage of binge drinkers and heavy drinkers. In 2012, adults in Hartford-New Haven, which the list considered one “metro area,” consumed an average of 15.1 alcoholic drinks per month. Additionally, 16.3 percent were binge drinkers, and 3.6 percent were heavy drinkers.

This is the first year the duo has made the list. Last year, neither city placed in top 25 drunkest cities, and in 2010, when The Daily Beast released its first annual list of the drunkest cities, Hartford was ranked 16th and New Haven was not mentioned. Whether we Yalies contribute to these relatively high numbers of alcohol consumption remains to be seen.

The CDC defines binge drinking as “a pattern of alcohol consumption that brings the blood alcohol level to .08 percent or more,” and heavy drinkers are defined as men who consume an average of more than two drinks a day and women who consume an average of more than one drink a day.

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