Declining drinking among adolescents: Are we seeing a denormalisation of drinking and a normalisation of non‐drinking?

Abstract

Background: In the early 2000s, alcohol use among young people began to decline in many western countries, especially among adolescents (ages between 12-17 years old).These declines have continued steadily over the past two decades, against the backdrop of much smaller declines among the general population.Argument: Hypotheses examining individual factors fail adequately to provide the necessary 'big picture' thinking needed to understand declines in adolescent drinking. We use the normalisation thesis to argue that there is strong international evidence for both processes of denormalisation of drinking and normalisation of non-drinking occurring for adolescents in many western countries.Conclusions: Research on declining adolescent drinking provides evidence of both denormalisation of alcohol consumption and normalisation of non-drinking. This has implications for enabling policy environments more amenable to regulation and increasing the acceptability of non-drinking in social contexts. Normalisation theory (and its various interpretations) provides a useful multi-dimensional tool for understanding declines in adolescent drinking.

17 Is the New 15: Changing Alcohol Consumption among Swedish Youth

“…Today's youth seem to belong to a generally well-behaved generation as there are observations of declines in crime [34] and other risk behaviours [35] parallel to the declines in youth drinking. There are also reports of normalising non-drinking in this generation [36,37], with small or no differences seen between drinkers and non-drinkers [38]. There is also some evidence that today's youth are more health-conscious [39,40].…”

Response to commentaries: (de)normalization of drinking and its implications for young people, sociality, culture and epidemiology

“…Alcohol, alcohol epidemiology, cultural change, declining youth drinking, digital technology, normalization, sociality Gabriel Caluzzi 1 Michael Livingston 1,2 John Holmes 3 Sarah MacLean 1,4 Dan I. Lubman 5,6 Paul Dietze 7,8 Rakhi Vashishtha 1 Rachel Herring 9 Amy Pennay…”

“…Our recent article [1] has prompted important questions from cultural studies [2], sociological [3] and epidemiological [4] perspectives. Alasuutari [2] is critical of the ability of the normalization thesis to account for changes in young people's drinking, suggesting that it provides a description of change rather than an explanation.…”

“…However, most of the literature they draw upon comes from young adults, rather than adolescents (who are the subjects of our argument), and it would be interesting to know how these processes play out for younger Danes. We agree that it is important to include research with heavy drinkers as a necessary component in understanding large shifts in drinking for young people, especially concerning the importance of drinking contexts [1]. Further, the continued prevalence and importance of alcohol for young Danes (to a much greater degree than their Scandinavian neighbours [15]) highlights the value of cross‐national comparative research [16].…”

The global nature of declining adolescent drinking

“…Caluzzi and colleagues' article [1] is a welcome step forward in trying to account for adolescents' declining alcohol consumption.…”