A population-based study on the prevalence and correlates of drinking and driving in Hong Kong

Abstract

To examine the prevalence and correlates of drinking and driving in Hong Kong, an anonymous, random telephone survey was conducted on 9860 Chinese adults (18–70 years of age) from April to June 2006. Trained interviewers administered a structured interview consisting of questions on socio-demographic information, drinking pattern, drink-driving, and motor vehicle accidents. The census age-standardized past-year prevalence of driving within 2 h of drinking was 5.2% among males and 0.8% among females. The prevalence across age showed an inverted U-shaped trend for males peaking at 8.2% between 41 and 45 years. For females the prevalence was fairly stable between the ages of 20 and 55. The past-year prevalence of alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents was 0.1%, with the majority being in the 26–30 age group. For males who drank, the prevalence of drinking and driving was 5.0% among those without problem drinking, 14.8% among binge drinkers, 37.1% among alcohol abusers and 22.4% among the alcohol dependent. For females who drank, the corresponding figures were all lower at 1.2%, 6.9%, 12.1% and 12.5%, respectively. Higher socio-economic status, weekly drinking, binge drinking and alcohol abuse were independently associated with higher likelihood of drinking and driving in both genders. Among drinking drivers, having a job that required drinking was the only predictor of having had a motor vehicle accident. The elevated prevalence of drinking and driving among alcohol abusers, binge drinkers and the alcohol dependent may portend higher population-level rates of alcohol-related motor accidents in the future since the prevalence of problem drinking has previously been noted to be increasing rapidly in Hong Kong.