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Prevalence, perceptions and predictors of alcohol consumption and abstinence among South Australian school students: a cross-sectional analysis

BACKGROUND: Alcohol consumption by young people (particularly early initiation) is a predictor for poorer health in later life. In addition, evidence now clearly shows a causal link between alcohol and cancer. This study investigated prevalence, predictors of alcohol consumption among adolescents in...

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Autores principales: Bowden, Jacqueline A., Delfabbro, Paul, Room, Robin, Miller, Caroline L., Wilson, Carlene
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5461699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28592268
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4475-5
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author Bowden, Jacqueline A.
Delfabbro, Paul
Room, Robin
Miller, Caroline L.
Wilson, Carlene
author_facet Bowden, Jacqueline A.
Delfabbro, Paul
Room, Robin
Miller, Caroline L.
Wilson, Carlene
author_sort Bowden, Jacqueline A.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Alcohol consumption by young people (particularly early initiation) is a predictor for poorer health in later life. In addition, evidence now clearly shows a causal link between alcohol and cancer. This study investigated prevalence, predictors of alcohol consumption among adolescents including perceptions of the link between alcohol and cancer, and the role of parents and peers. METHODS: A sample of Australian school students aged 12–17 years participated in a survey (n = 2885). Logistic regression analysis was undertaken to determine predictors. RESULTS: Alcohol use increased with age and by 16, most had tried alcohol with 33.1% of students aged 12–17 reporting that they drank at least occasionally (95% CI = 31.0–35.2). Awareness of the link between alcohol and cancer was low (28.5%). Smoking status and friends’ approval were predictive of drinking, whereas parental disapproval was protective. Those aged 14–17 who did not think the link between alcohol and cancer was important were more likely to drink, as were those living in areas of least disadvantage. The only factors that predicted recent drinking were smoking and the perception that alcohol was easy to purchase. CONCLUSIONS: An education campaign highlighting the link between alcohol and cancer may have positive flow-on effects for young people, and schools should incorporate this messaging into any alcohol education programs. Consideration should be given to factors that serve to regulate under-aged accessibility of alcohol.
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spelling pubmed-54616992017-06-07 Prevalence, perceptions and predictors of alcohol consumption and abstinence among South Australian school students: a cross-sectional analysis Bowden, Jacqueline A. Delfabbro, Paul Room, Robin Miller, Caroline L. Wilson, Carlene BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Alcohol consumption by young people (particularly early initiation) is a predictor for poorer health in later life. In addition, evidence now clearly shows a causal link between alcohol and cancer. This study investigated prevalence, predictors of alcohol consumption among adolescents including perceptions of the link between alcohol and cancer, and the role of parents and peers. METHODS: A sample of Australian school students aged 12–17 years participated in a survey (n = 2885). Logistic regression analysis was undertaken to determine predictors. RESULTS: Alcohol use increased with age and by 16, most had tried alcohol with 33.1% of students aged 12–17 reporting that they drank at least occasionally (95% CI = 31.0–35.2). Awareness of the link between alcohol and cancer was low (28.5%). Smoking status and friends’ approval were predictive of drinking, whereas parental disapproval was protective. Those aged 14–17 who did not think the link between alcohol and cancer was important were more likely to drink, as were those living in areas of least disadvantage. The only factors that predicted recent drinking were smoking and the perception that alcohol was easy to purchase. CONCLUSIONS: An education campaign highlighting the link between alcohol and cancer may have positive flow-on effects for young people, and schools should incorporate this messaging into any alcohol education programs. Consideration should be given to factors that serve to regulate under-aged accessibility of alcohol. BioMed Central 2017-06-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5461699/ /pubmed/28592268 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4475-5 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bowden, Jacqueline A.
Delfabbro, Paul
Room, Robin
Miller, Caroline L.
Wilson, Carlene
Prevalence, perceptions and predictors of alcohol consumption and abstinence among South Australian school students: a cross-sectional analysis
title Prevalence, perceptions and predictors of alcohol consumption and abstinence among South Australian school students: a cross-sectional analysis
title_full Prevalence, perceptions and predictors of alcohol consumption and abstinence among South Australian school students: a cross-sectional analysis
title_fullStr Prevalence, perceptions and predictors of alcohol consumption and abstinence among South Australian school students: a cross-sectional analysis
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence, perceptions and predictors of alcohol consumption and abstinence among South Australian school students: a cross-sectional analysis
title_short Prevalence, perceptions and predictors of alcohol consumption and abstinence among South Australian school students: a cross-sectional analysis
title_sort prevalence, perceptions and predictors of alcohol consumption and abstinence among south australian school students: a cross-sectional analysis
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5461699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28592268
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4475-5
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