Abstract
OBJECTIVE To analyze temporal trends of the prevalence of alcohol and tobacco use among Brazilian students.METHODS We analyzed data published between 1989 and 2010 from five epidemiological surveys on students from the 6th to the 12th grade of public schools from the ten largest state capitals of Brazil. The total sample consisted of 104,104 students and data were collected in classrooms. The same collection tool – a World Health Organization self-reporting questionnaire – and sampling and weighting procedures were used in the five surveys. The Chi-square test for trend was used to compare the prevalence from different years.RESULTS The prevalence of alcohol and tobacco use varied among the years and cities studied. Alcohol consumption decreased in the 10 state capitals (p < 0.001) throughout 21 years. Tobacco use also decreased significantly in eight cities (p < 0.001). The highest prevalence of alcohol use was found in the Southeast region in 1993 (72.8%, in Belo Horizonte) and the lowest one in Belem (30.6%) in 2010. The highest past-year prevalence of tobacco use was found in the South region in 1997 (28.0%, in Curitiba) and the lowest one in the Southeast in 2010 (7.8%, in Sao Paulo).CONCLUSIONS The decreasing trend in the prevalence of tobacco and alcohol use among students detected all over the Country can be related to the successful and comprehensive Brazilian antitobacco and antialcohol policies. Despite these results, the past-year prevalence of alcohol consumption in the past year remained high in all Brazilian regions.
Highlights
Alcohol and tobacco are the drugs most widely used by adolescents worldwide and responsible for a high global burden of disease in several countries.[9]
The past-year prevalence of alcohol consumption in the past year remained high in all Brazilian regions
Opposite trends have been reported by 13- to 17-year-old students in New Zealand, where past-month binge drinking dropped from 44.0% to 20.0% from 2001 to 2012.6 In the past two decades, the lifetime prevalence of alcohol use among high school students in Canada,[8] Japan[23] and the United States[16] decreased from 20.0% to 50.0%
Summary
Alcohol and tobacco are the drugs most widely used by adolescents worldwide and responsible for a high global burden of disease in several countries.[9]. In Russia, from 1994 to 2011, weekly drinking reported by 15-year-old adolescents increased from 13.0% to 28.0% among boys and from 6.0% to 15.0% among girls.[29] opposite trends have been reported by 13- to 17-year-old students in New Zealand, where past-month binge drinking dropped from 44.0% to 20.0% from 2001 to 2012.6 In the past two decades, the lifetime prevalence of alcohol use among high school students in Canada,[8] Japan[23] and the United States[16] decreased from 20.0% to 50.0%. In the Netherlands, stabilization in alcohol use was detected in the 1990s, followed by an increase in the first decade of the 2000s, from a lifetime prevalence of alcohol use of 68.6% in 1993 to 88.4% in 2000,24 attributed to the arrival of alcopops in the country.[27] In Latin America, countries have less regular data and, trends over time cannot always be examined. According to data from the Organización de los Estados Americanos, the prevalence of recent use of alcohol (past 30 days) in Paraguay, Chile, and Ecuador was 40.0% among high school students between 2003 and 2010.a In Chile, the prevalence of past-year alcohol use was high and relatively stable (61.0% to 63.0%) from 2001 to 2013.b In Mexico, from 2006 to 2009, the prevalence of past-year alcohol use was 50.0%.30
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