Abstract
The current study was designed to investigate the drinking patterns and association between socio-demographic factors and adolescents’ alcohol use among high school students from China’s three metropolises, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Using a self-administered questionnaire, we conducted a cross-sectional survey among 13,811 high school students from 136 schools between May and June 2013. A two-stage stratified sampling method was used for subject selection. The prevalence of lifetime drinking was 52.5%; in addition, 38.5% of the students were past-year drinkers, while 20.1% of them had consumed alcohol in the past 30 days. During the past year, 29.7% of the students reported that they drank once per month or less, and 22.0% of the students drank less than one standard drink (SD) per occasion. For the students who were not living with their mothers, as well as the students in higher socioeconomic status (SES), the adjusted odds of past and current drinking were significantly higher, compared with those who lived with both parents and low SES. Due to the high prevalence of alcohol consumption among junior and senior high school students in metropolises, attention should be paid by parents, school administrators, educational and public health agencies for making efforts collectively to reduce alcohol availability and drinking among adolescents.
Highlights
Adolescent drinking continues to be a significant social and public health issue worldwide [1].It has been shown that adolescent drinking is associated with abnormalities in brain functioning, including memory deficits and poor academic performance [2,3,4,5]
China has century-long history of alcohol use [13] as well as a large population of adolescent [14], the population data of adolescent alcohol use in multi-metropolises as well as its correlates during the past decades are surprisingly limited
136 schools were selected in the 12 districts, and the number of the sampling students in each district based on the registered number of students
Summary
Adolescent drinking continues to be a significant social and public health issue worldwide [1]. It has been shown that adolescent drinking is associated with abnormalities in brain functioning, including memory deficits and poor academic performance [2,3,4,5]. Adolescent drinking brings about many health risks, such as drunk driving, violence, illicit drug use, unsafe sex, and suicide [6,7,8,9]. During the past few years, numerous attempts have been developed for preventing and controlling of alcohol-related problems among youth [10]. It is essential first to understand the nature and the trend of adolescent drinking within a given cultural context. China has century-long history of alcohol use [13] as well as a large population of adolescent [14], the population data of adolescent alcohol use in multi-metropolises as well as its correlates during the past decades are surprisingly limited
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