Youth alcohol problems in the spotlight

To mark Alcohol Awareness Week, held in October 2010, Alcohol Concern, the national charity on alcohol misuse, focused on the alcohol problems experienced by the under 18s, both those arising from their own drinking and those caused by parental alcohol consumption. A third report flagged up the issue of youth exposure to alcohol advertising, particularly on TV during the football world cup.

Right Time, Right Place

On drinking by under 18s themselves, Alcohol Concern says that young people are damaging their health as a result of drinking at greater levels than ever. Altogether, the charity says, underage drinkers consume each week the equivalent of nearly 7 million pints of beer or 1.7 million bottles of wine, and the consequences for their health are becoming more and more evident.

Between 2002 and 2007, alcohol-related hospital admissions for under 18s increased by 32%. On average over the last seven years, Alcohol Concern says, 36 children a day were admitted to hospital due to alcohol, and this excludes admissions to Emergency Departments, where records of alcohol involvement are not routinely kept.

A striking feature of the figures is that more girls than boys are now attending hospitals for alcohol problems. Between 2004 and 2009, 28% more girls than boys were admitted to hospital from Emergency Departments.

The explanation, the charity says, is that the dramatic cultural shift in recent decades in the UK, as alcohol has become increasingly more affordable and widely available, has resulted in today’s generation of children increasingly replicating the worrying patterns of drinking among their older peers and adults, leading to disastrous health and social consequences for them and their families.

The charity says it is clear that, without effective prevention and intervention, this harmful behaviour will continue to normalise problem drinking and continue to advance pro-drinking cultural attitudes among children and young people.

Alcohol Concern’s major new report ‘Right time, right place: alcohol-harm reduction strategies with children and young people’ calls for earlier identifi cation of young people engaged in ‘risky’ drinking such as young people attending A&E or getting into trouble with the police for alcohol, so that they can access information, advice and support. The report draws together expert practice guidance, experience from local level delivery and new research, including unpublished health data, to identify important next steps in harm reduction strategy.

The report is available to download at:
http://www. alcoholconcern.org.uk/ publications/policy-reports/ right-time-right-place