Citation

Siste K, Sen LT. Alcohol Clin. Exp. Res. 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/acer.14556

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

According to a 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) report, nearly half (43 %) of the world's population (15 years and older) had consumed alcohol within the last 12 months. The report, based on data until 2016, revealed that 26.5 % of 15-19-year-olds and 40.7 % of 20-24-year-olds had consumed alcohol. In Southeast Asia, 21.1 % and 34.3 % of 15-19- and 20-24- year-olds, respectively, had reduced their drinking habits. This was in sharp contrast to the global trend whereby there was a marked decline in individuals' drinking habits within the same period in the American and European regions (World Health Organization, 2018). Although the percentage of people consuming alcohol remains relatively the same, the volume of alcohol consumed per capita (APC) has increased by 34 % in the Southeast Asian region during the same period, while the European region witnessed a decrease of 12% (Manthey et al., 2019). There is, however, substantial variability in the proportion of adolescent (13-17-years-old) population consuming alcohol across geographical boundaries. Notably, 4.4 % of adolescents in Indonesia consumed alcohol, while it was 23.0% in Thailand. Assanangkornchai and Vichitkunakorn (2020) illustrate a temporal picture of Thai youths' drinking behavior by analyzing four national cross-sectional surveys. Their results provide compelling evidence on the changing patterns of problematic alcohol consumption from 2007 to 2017. Unlike the regional trend, this study describes the increasing alcohol consumption in the past year prevalent among Thai youth (15-24-year-olds) from 2007 to 2014, especially among female youth. This necessitated identifying country-specific trends of alcohol consumption among the young population (Assanangkornchai and Vichitkunakorn, 2020).

Language: en