Alcohol control policies and alcohol consumption by youth: a multi‐national study

Abstract

Aims-The study examined relationships between alcohol control policies and adolescent alcohol use in 26 countries.Design-Cross-sectional analyses of alcohol policy ratings based on the Alcohol Policy Index (API), per capita consumption, and national adolescent survey data. Setting-Data are from 26 countries.Participants-Adolescents (15-17 years old) who participated in the 2003 ESPAD (European countries) or national secondary school surveys in Spain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.Measurements-Alcohol control policy ratings based on the API; prevalence of alcohol use, heavy drinking, and first drink by age 13 based on national secondary school surveys; per capita alcohol consumption for each country in 2003.Analysis-Correlational and linear regression analyses were conducted to examine relationships between alcohol control policy ratings and past-30-day prevalence of adolescent alcohol use, heavy drinking, and having first drink by age 13. Per capita consumption of alcohol was included as a covariate in regression analyses.Findings-More comprehensive API ratings and alcohol availability and advertising control ratings were inversely related to the past-30-day prevalence of alcohol use and prevalence rates for drinking 3-5 times and 6 or more times in the past 30 days. Alcohol advertising control was also inversely related to the prevalence of past-30-day heavy drinking and having first drink by age 13. Most of the relationships between API, alcohol availability and advertising control and drinking prevalence rates were attenuated and no longer statistically significant when controlling for per capita consumption in regression analyses, suggesting that alcohol use in the general population may confound or mediate observed relationships between alcohol control policies and youth alcohol consumption. Several of the inverse relationships remained statistically significant when controlling for per capita consumption.Conclusions-More comprehensive and stringent alcohol control policies, particularly policies affecting alcohol availability and marketing, are associated with lower prevalence and frequency of adolescent alcohol consumption and age of first alcohol use. The societal costs of alcohol consumption by youth and the burden of alcohol use on disease in general have prompted many countries to implement policies restricting alcohol availability in order to reduce consumption and related harm among young people [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Such regulatory policies include setting a minimum legal purchase or drinking age, restricting the types of alcoholic beverages sold in stores, restricting the density of stores selling alcoholic beverages in a given area, restricting the hours of business when alcohol can be sold, mandatory training of alcoholic beverage servers, and increasing the price of alcohol [4][5][6]. The aim of such policies is to increase the "full price" of alcohol for youth by increasing the resources necessary to obtain it or the potential costs for possessing or consuming it [4,5]. Alco...

Alcohol distribution reforms and school proximity to liquor sales outlets in New Brunswick

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Knowledge production, communication and utilization: studying biomedical alcohol research

“…This provides a central motive for studying biomedical alcohol research in more detail, both in Sweden and in other countries i . In general, social research on alcohol policy is concerned with studying specific aspects of policy, such as analysing how control policies affect drinking and alcohol problems in specific population groups (e.g., Paschall et al, 2009), countries (e.g., Bloomfield et al, 2010), or parts of a country (e.g., Gustafsson, 2010), or studying one country's position in international policy-making (for Sweden, see Cisneros Örnberg, 2009). Whereas the liberalization of alcohol policy has been the topic for discussion in several studies (e.g., Johansson, 2008;Olsson, 2000;Sulkunen, 2000), biomedical alcohol research has received little attention.…”

Youth Drinking in the United States: Relationships With Alcohol Policies and Adult Drinking

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