Tools
Tools
Bellis, MA, Hughes, K, Jones, L, Morleo, M, Nicholls, J, McCoy, E, Webster, J and Sumnall, H (2015) Holidays, celebrations, and commiserations: measuring drinking during feasting and fasting to improve national and individual estimates of alcohol consumption. BMC MEDICINE, 13 (113). ISSN 1741-7015
 | There is a more recent version of this item available. |
|
Text
Holidays, celebrations, and commiserations: measuring drinking during feasting and fasting to improve national and individual estimates of alcohol consumption..pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (474kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Background: Accurate measures of alcohol consumption are critical in assessing health harms caused by alcohol.
In many countries, there are large discrepancies between survey-based measures of consumption and those based
on alcohol sales. In England, surveys measuring typical alcohol consumption account for only around 60% of alcohol
sold. Here, using a national survey, we measure both typical drinking and atypical/special occasion drinking (i.e., feasting and fasting) in order to develop more complete measures of alcohol consumption.
Methods: A national random probability telephone survey was implemented (May 2013 to April 2014). Inclusion criteria
were resident in England and aged 16 years or over. Respondents (n = 6,085) provided information on typical drinking (amounts per day, drinking frequency) and changes in consumption associated with routine atypical days (e.g., Friday nights) and special dinking periods (e.g., holidays) and events (e.g., weddings). Generalized linear modelling was used to identify additional alcohol consumption associated with atypical/special occasion drinking by age, sex, and typical drinking level.
Results: Accounting for atypical/special occasion drinking added more than 120 million UK units of alcohol/week
(~12 million bottles of wine) to population alcohol consumption in England. The greatest impact was seen among
25- to 34-year-olds with the highest typical consumption, where atypical/special occasions added approximately 18 units/week (144 g) for both sexes. Those reporting the lowest typical consumption (≤1 unit/week) showed
large relative increases in consumption (209.3%) with most drinking associated with special occasions. In some
demographics, adjusting for special occasions resulted in overall reductions in annual consumption (e.g., females, 65 to 74 years in the highest typical drinking category).
Conclusions: Typical drinking alone can be a poor proxy for actual alcohol consumption. Accounting for atypical/special
occasion drinking fills 41.6% of the gap between surveyed consumption and national sales in England. These additional
units are inevitably linked to increases in lifetime risk of alcohol-related disease and injury, particularly as special occasions often constitute heavy drinking episodes. Better population measures of celebratory, festival, and holiday drinking are required in national surveys in order to adequately measure both alcohol consumption and the health harms associated with special occasion drinking.
Keywords: Abstinence, Alcohol, Binge drinking, Holidays, Sales, Surveys
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | 11 Medical And Health Sciences |
| Subjects: | R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine |
| Divisions: | Public and Allied Health |
| Publisher: | BIOMED CENTRAL LTD |
| Related URLs: | |
| Date Deposited: | 18 Aug 2015 14:35 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Sep 2021 14:04 |
| DOI or ID number: | 10.1186/s12916-015-0337-0 |
| URI: | https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/1854 |
Available Versions of this Item
- Holidays, celebrations, and commiserations: measuring drinking during feasting and fasting to improve national and individual estimates of alcohol consumption. (deposited 18 Aug 2015 14:35) [Currently Displayed]
 |
View Item |