The drinking habits of youth in NSW, Australia: latest data and influencing factors

Ralph Moore; Genevieve Whitlam; Timothy Harrold; Nicola Lewis

doi:10.1071/phrp2641641

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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The drinking habits of youth in NSW, Australia: latest data and influencing factors

Ralph Moore ^A ^* , Genevieve Whitlam ^B , Timothy Harrold ^B and Nicola Lewis ^C

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Centre for Population Health, NSW Ministry of Health, Sydney, Australia

^B Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence, NSW Ministry of Health, Sydney, Australia

^C Drug and Alcohol Population and Community Programs, NSW Health, Sydney, Australia

^* Correspondence to: rmoor@doh.health.nsw.gov.au

Public Health Research and Practice 26, e2641641 https://doi.org/10.17061/phrp2641641

Published: 30 September 2016

2016 © Moore et al. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence, which allows others to redistribute, adapt and share this work non-commercially provided they attribute the work and any adapted version of it is distributed under the same Creative Commons licence terms.

Abstract

The New South Wales School Students Health Behaviours Survey (2014) reported a substantial reduction in students aged 12–17 years reporting that they had ever consumed alcohol, from 82.7% in 2005 to 65.1% in 2014. Similar downward trends are reported nationally and internationally. Although overall consumption is declining, national recommendations maintain that it is safest for young people to not drink at all; however, 17% of all young people in Australia consumed alcohol in the past 7 days, with 6% consuming at a significant risk of harm. The factors that influence young people’s uptake of alcohol are complex, including biological and broader social factors. This paper identifies some of the diverse influences on young people’s alcohol consumption, and policies and programs that support healthy behaviours.