How is alcohol consumption and heavy episodic drinking spread across different types of drinking occasion in Great Britain: An event-level latent class analysis

Holmes, J., Sasso, A., Hernández Alava, M., Borges Neves, R., Stevely, A. K., Warde, A. and Meier, P. S. (2024) How is alcohol consumption and heavy episodic drinking spread across different types of drinking occasion in Great Britain: An event-level latent class analysis. International Journal of Drug Policy, 127, 104414. (doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2024.104414)

Abstract

Background This paper aimed to (i) update a previous typology of British alcohol drinking occasions using a more recent and expanded dataset and revised modelling procedure, and (ii) estimate the average consumption level, prevalence of heavy drinking, and distribution of all alcohol consumption and heavy drinking within and across occasion types. Methods The paper uses a cross-sectional latent class analysis of event-level diary data that includes characteristics of 43,089 drinking occasions in 2019 reported by 17,821 adult drinkers in Great Britain. The latent class indicators are characteristics of off-trade only (e.g. home), on-trade only (e.g. bar) and mixed trade (e.g. home and bar) drinking occasions. These describe companions, locations, purpose, motivation, accompanying activities, timings, consumption volume in units (1 UK unit = 8g ethanol) and beverages consumed. Results The analysis identified four off-trade only, eight on-trade only and three mixed-trade occasion types (i.e. latent classes). Mean consumption per occasion varied between 4.4 units in Family meals to 17.7 units in Big nights out with pre-loading. It exceeded ten units in all mixed-trade occasion types and in Off-trade get togethers, Big nights out and Male friends at the pub. Three off-trade types accounted for 50.8% of all alcohol consumed and 51.8% of heavy drinking occasions: Quiet drink at home alone, Evening at home with partner and Off-trade get togethers. For thirteen out of fifteen occasion types, more than 25% of occasions involved heavy drinking. Conversely, 41.7% of Big nights out and 16.4% of Big nights out with preloading were not heavy drinking occasions. Conclusions Alcohol consumption varies substantially across and within fifteen types of drinking occasion in Great Britain. Heavy drinking is common in most occasion types. However, moderate drinking is also common in occasion types often characterised as heavy drinking practices. Mixed-trade drinking occasions are particularly likely to involve heavy drinking.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council Grant Number ES/R005257/1. PM’s research is also supported by UK Medical Research Council and Chief Scientist Office grants MC_UU_00022/5 and SPHSU20.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Meier, Professor Petra
• Authors: Holmes, J., Sasso, A., Hernández Alava, M., Borges Neves, R., Stevely, A. K., Warde, A., and Meier, P. S.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Health & Wellbeing > MRC/CSO SPHSU
• Journal Name: International Journal of Drug Policy
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 0955-3959
• Published Online: 07 April 2024
• Copyright Holders: Copyright: © 2024 The Authors
• First Published: First published in International Journal of Drug Policy 127: 104414
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
304823005	1	Systems science research in public health	Petra Meier	Medical Research Council (MRC)	MC_UU_00022/5	HW - MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit
304823010	1	Systems science research in public health	Petra Meier	Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSO)	SPHSU20	HW - MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit