It’s National Women’s Health Week (May 14-20), an opportunity for social workers to encourage women to make their health a priority, including avoiding drinking too much alcohol. With their distinctive skillset and as key providers of mental and behavioral health services in a wide range of settings, social workers are in a unique position to prevent risky drinking among women. 

Four in five adults who reported being asked about their alcohol use at a checkup in the past two years and reported current binge drinking were not counseled to reduce their drinking, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report. Looking closer at the data, just 14 percent of women who binge drink said they received advice to reduce drinking, compared to 25 percent of men.