Thinking about Drinking: Explaining drinking behaviour by drinker prototypes

Abstract

Worldwide, about 11.5% of drinkers engage in weekly heavy episodic drinking. Heavy or excessive drinking is defined as consuming 60 or more grams of pure alcohol; equal to 6 or more standard glasses. In the Netherlands4 and many other countries, excessive drinking is especially prevalent among adolescents and young adults (18–25 years old, 20%). In the general population, the prevalence and consumption is higher among males (15.4%) than females (10.5%). Furthermore, higher educated people (90%) report a higher prevalence of alcohol use after the age of 34 than lower educated people (66%), irrespective of gender. However, excessive drinking is generally more prevalent among lower educated individuals (18%) than higher educated individuals (10%), except in the age groups of 25–34 and 65+. This difference has slightly decreased during the years 1990-2008.5 The prevalence is also slightly higher among Dutch-born persons (13.6%) than Western immigrants (12%) and who, in turn, report a higher prevalence than among non-Western immigrants (8.8%).3 Although the patterns are similar when focusing on different generations, the prevalence is higher for second generations than for first generations of immigrants. The total amount of alcohol per capita in the general Dutch population has increased since the sixties, with its peak in the eighties. It stabilised in the nineties. Excessive drinking has decreased by 4% since 2001. Binge drinking has remained stable since 2003 for adolescents (12–16 years old), but decreased from 36% in 2003 to 26% in 2009 among all young people. Simultaneously, the number of hospital admissions among adolescents aged 16 or younger increased with 300%.