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1 ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
HEADLINES
- 34% of men reported their usual alcohol consumption as being more than the recommended limit of 21 units per week. There was little variation by age (around 36%), until the 65-74 age group, when the proportion exceeding this level dropped to 27%, and then to 21% among men aged 75 and over.
- The proportion of women who reported drinking more than the recommended limit of 14 units per week was 23%. This decreased as age increased, from between 27% and 32% of those in the age groups 16-24 to 45-54, to 21% of those aged 55-64, 13% of those aged 65-74 to only 5% of women aged 75 and over.
- On average, men drank 20.3 units of alcohol per week. This amount mainly consisted of consuming normal strength beer (9 units), wine (5 units) and spirits (4 units).
- Women drank on average 9.1 units per week. This consisted mainly of wine (5 units) and spirits
(2 units). - Levels of weekly consumption were highest among women in managerial and professional households and in the highest income quintile; consumption decreased along with household income, and was lowest for women in lower supervisory and technical and semi-routine and routine households.
- A similar pattern exists for men: the proportion exceeding weekly limits decreases as household income declines and as deprivation increases. Men in professional, managerial and intermediate households are more likely to exceed weekly limits than men in other types of household.
- Turning to consumption on the heaviest drinking day in the past week, among men who had drunk alcohol during this period, 63% said they drank more than 4 units of alcohol and 40% said they drank more than 8 units on their heaviest drinking day. The proportion of men drinking these amounts decreased significantly with age: 60% of men aged 16-24 drank more than 8 units compared with 9% of men aged 75 and over.
- Among women who had drunk alcohol during the preceding week, 64% reported drinking more than 3 units on their heaviest drinking day and 33% drank more than 6 units, defined as a binge. Drinking these amounts was much more common among younger than older women: while 60% of women aged 16-24 reported binge drinking this decreased to 1% of women aged 75 and over.
- Unlike weekly drinking levels, the relationship between alcohol intake on the heaviest drinking day in the previous week and socio-demographic factors is not very clear. Looking at NS-SEC, there is no consistent pattern for men whereas for women those in professional, managerial and intermediate households were more likely to report drinking more than 3 units and to binge drink than women in other household types.
- Men's daily consumption declined as household income declined, until the lowest income quintile where men's consumption increased and matched that of men in the highest quintile. A similar pattern existed for women, however the increase in the lowest quintile was not as pronounced as for men. Women in the highest income quintile households were the most likely to consume more than 3 or more than 6 units on their heaviest drinking day.
- The relationship between area deprivation and binge drinking was different for men and women. Men's consumption increased as deprivation increased, for example those in the most deprived 20% of areas were the most likely to drink more than 8 units per day (49% did so compared with between 36% and 41% in the other four groups). There was no consistent pattern between women's alcohol consumption on the heaviest drinking day and area deprivation.
- Potential problem drinkers are defined as agreeing with 2 or more of the 6 items on the CAGE questionnaire; this applied to 12% of men and 7% of women. Problem drinkers were much more commonly found in the younger age groups for both sexes.
- The mean number of units that children aged 13-15 reported consuming in the past week was 1.0 for boys and 1.3 for girls.
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