Friday,
August 22, 2003
NEW REPORT UNCOVERS MAJOR DEFICIENCIES
IN ALCOHOL RESEARCH ON YOUNG PEOPLE –
ANU PROFESSOR
A detailed evaluation
of research on the consumption of alcohol among young people reveals
that many of the methodologies used are flawed, resulting in conclusions
that are often questionable, biased or misleading.
The report, Alcohol Consumption
Among Adolescents and Young People was undertaken by Professor
Ian McAllister, Head of the Research School of Social Sciences at the
Australian National University.
The report was commissioned by the Distilled Spirits Industry
Council of Australia (DSICA) which is now calling for a uniform approach
to data collection and analysis by industry participants, policy makers,
charities and other parties who have an interest in alcohol related
issues.
Key findings from the report include:
| • |
The
quality and reliability of occasional surveys on underage drinking
have varied considerably with some having little value; |
| • |
The
National Drug Strategy Household Surveys (NDS) (1985–2001)
represent the most systematic attempt in Australia to analyse
patterns of alcohol use; |
| • |
More
conceptual and empirical rigour is required in the use of terms
that imply risk or harm with regard to alcohol consumption, more
particularly with regard to the term ‘binge drinking’. |
| • |
The
current convention of estimating harm or risk based just on those
who have consumed alcohol in a previous set period…grossly
inflates estimates of alcohol consumption among those aged under
18. |
| • |
The
NDS surveys indicate no substantial increase in the lifetime prevalence
of alcohol use in the last decade, despite claims to the contrary. |
| • |
There
has been gross over-estimation of alcohol consumption in the 14–17
age group; |
| • |
‘The
age of initiation into alcohol use shows no clear trend either
in terms of younger or older initiation’. |
Assessing available research since the early 1980s, Professor McAllister’s
report found the main advantages of the NDS research is that it is based
on a series of seven surveys since 1985, it has a large sample size,
and a common set of questions.
His report also revealed that other forms of research are
less reliable, such as the Australian Longitudinal
Study on Women’s Health, which had been conducted for more
general purposes. This survey had an ‘inherent contradiction in
categorising 70 percent of young women as ‘binge drinkers’,
yet also concluding that over 90 percent are responsible drinkers according
to NH&MRC guidelines’.
Another high profile survey, the occasional 2002 Salvation
Army research, conducted by Roy Morgan Research, was found to have a
‘series of methodological drawbacks which make it of limited value
in providing any objective evidence on patterns of alcohol consumption’.
Professor McAllister’s report also noted that there
are many differing terminologies used in the alcohol debate that have
little consistency in their interpretation.
Professor McAllister noted that terms such as ‘binge drinking’
‘are so ambiguous that they have little place in scientific research’.
The use of these terms does little to progress our understanding of
alcohol use and more often they produce contradiction.
The evaluation of the 2001 NDS survey on the Patterns
of Alcohol Use also shows that there has been no substantial
increase in the lifetime prevalence of alcohol use in the last ten years,
despite claims to the contrary.
An analysis of the 2001 NDS results shows that ‘the
overall changes in drinking patterns among the young are not the result
of any major shift in gender-based patterns of drinking’.
The report found there was ‘a decline in alcohol consumption
in the early or mid-1990s, followed by a rise in the late-1990s, but
it is difficult in the absence of reliable post-2001 survey data to
conclude that this represents a continuing upward trend or simply a
reversion to the patterns that were apparent prior to the 1990s’.
The report states that the age of initiation into alcohol
shows no clear trend either in terms of younger or older initiation.
‘If anything, the mean age of initiation among adults has increased
rather than declined’.
‘Those consuming alcohol at least weekly have increased,
at the expense both of less frequent and more frequent users,’
noted Professor McAllister.
‘Among younger drinkers, those consuming alcohol more
frequently than once a week has declined since the late 1980s,’
he also noted.
Professor McAllister also pointed out that ‘there needs
to be agreed methods by which alcohol use is measured, particularly
among underage drinkers. The current methods that are most commonly
used substantially inflate use among this group’.
