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1. An average bottle of wine is now around 12% ABV with 9 units of alcohol in a 750ml bottle, though many are stronger and some weaker, thus responses from 8-10 are included as 'correct'.
2. Recommended daily limits are 3 or 4 units for men and 2 or 3 units for women, so these figures relate to the proportion of men drinking 9 or more units and the proportion of women drinking 7 or more units on their heaviest drinking day in the previous week.
3. Figures on alcohol industry sales data provided to the Scottish Government by The Nielsen Company, see http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/health/Alcohol/resources/nielson-data
4. The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation ( SIMD) 2006 measures the level of deprivation across Scotland - from the least deprived to the most deprived areas. It is based on 37 indicators in seven domains of: Current Income, Employment, Health, Education Skills and Training, Geographic Access to Services (including public transport travel times for the first time), Housing and Crime. See http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/Overview for further details on the SIMD 5. See discussion on the definition of 'hazardous' drinking in Chapter Three of this report.
6. 'There is not a God-given right to dispense alcohol', The Guardian 14 May 2008
7. The precise figure given for response rates depends on whether dwelling units whose eligibility to participate was unknown are included or excluded from the calculation. Dwelling units are coded as 'unknown eligibility' where the interviewer is unable to establish whether the property is occupied and residential. The higher response rate excludes dwelling units of unknown eligibility from the calculation, while the lower rate includes them. As some of the dwelling units whose eligibility was unknown are likely to be eligible and some ineligible, the true response rate probably lies somewhere between the two figures. For further details on response rate calculations, see the technical report.
8. Including the 2003 Scottish Health Survey. Data from the 2008 Scottish Health Survey will be available in 2009.
9. Based on Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation ( SIMD) quintiles. See Annex B for details on the SIMD.
10. Which found that 71% of men and 72% of women mentioned their own home as a usual place to drink.
11. However, one difference is that SSA found more variation by age in the proportion of people drinking alone. This may in part reflect a difference in the way the question was worded. The 2003 Scottish Health Survey asked people who they usually drink with, and included 'On my own' in the list of answer options. SSA asked people: first, whether they usually drink on their own or with someone else; and then who people usually drank with. It seems plausible that younger people who sometimes drink alone would select this option when presented with a list which includes it, but would not say they usually drank on their own rather than with someone else.
12. Most questions discussed in this chapter were asked in the self-completion section of SSA to minimise the risk of respondents giving what they perceive to be 'socially acceptable' answers. The self-completion section was completed by 87% of respondents in 2007.
13. NB where 'combined' figures are cited in the text (for example, the total who said they 'disagree' plus the total who 'disagree strongly'), these may occasionally vary from the figures obtained by summing the individual figures shown elsewhere in this report due to rounding.
14. For example, the 'Alcohol: don't push it' campaign, launched in 2006 - see http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2006/08/14120436/Q/Video/353
15. Although it should be noted that it is not clear from these findings whether people would feel responsible for a friend simply getting drunk, rather than the possibility of their getting into trouble as a result of this.
16. See for example comments in response to the increase in taxes on alcohol in the 2008 budget, in 'Budget 2008: Wine Tax now highest in Europe', The Daily Telegraph, 13 March 2008 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/12/bcnbudget2512.xml
17. The differences in bivariate analysis are not very large - 48% of 18-29s agreed they would feel responsible if a friend got drunk and got into trouble, compared with 53% of 30-39s, 55% of 40-64s and 53% of 65+. However, regression analysis nonetheless suggests that differences between those aged 40+ and the 18-29 group are significant.
18. Other differences by income were less clear - for example, those earning £38,000 were marginally more likely than those on under £10,000 to agree that those with serious drinking problems have only themselves to blame. However, in fact it is those earning £10-£22,999 who were most likely to agree with this statement. Similarly, the income group least likely to disagree that it is possible to enjoy a night out in the pub without drinking is those in the third quartile, earning, £23-£37,999, while differences between the top and bottom quartiles are not significant.
19. The 2003 Scottish Health Survey found that 13% of women drank 15-35 units per week and 21% of men drank 22-50 units
20. At the 95% level or above - that is, the chance of finding a difference of this size by chance if in reality there was no such difference is estimated at 5% or less.
21. The 2004 survey simply asked how likely each drinker was to damage their health in the long-term. It was felt that this could be ambiguous, since people might assume a binge drinker would 'grow out' of their drinking behaviour and thus be unlikely to suffer long-term health effects. Thus in 2007 the wording was amended to ask about the health impacts of this type of drinking if continued long-term.
22. Regression analysis suggests a similar relationship between sex and beliefs about the impact of 'binge drinking' on health.
23. Regression analysis also suggests that women are slightly more likely than men to disagree that a 'hazardous' drinker should be embarrassed, although this is not apparent in bivariate analysis, where attitudes to hazardous drinking are simply cross-tabbed by the respondents sex. This suggests that differences in attitudes by sex are only apparent after differences between men and women in terms of, for example, frequency of drinking, are taken into account.
24. While neither pattern is very pronounced in bivariate analysis, regression analysis indicates that those who were read the female version were more likely to consider them 'not very' or 'not at all' likely to damage their health, and more likely to disagree that they should feel embarrassed.
25. The recommended upper limit for women is 2-3 units, with half a bottle of wine usually containing 4-5 units. The recommended upper limit for men is 3-4 units, with two-thirds of a bottle of wine usually containing 5-6 units.
26. Although again, neither pattern is very pronounced in bivariate analysis, which suggests that class is only significant once other factors are controlled for.
27. The only statistically significant finding was that those in the middle quintile were more likely than those in the least or most deprived areas to disagree that the 'hazardous' drinker should be embarrassed.
28. Note that those who drink 3 or 4 times a week are also more likely than more occasional drinkers to disagree that the 'hazardous drinker' should be embarrassed (47%).
29. The only question significantly associated with knowledge of recommended limits was how serious people consider 'hazardous drinking' to be. Those who failed to identify the correct limit for both men and women were more likely to regard 'hazardous drinking' as 'not very' or 'not at all' serious. However, the relationship was not very strong (p = 0.06) and is not apparent in bivariate analysis.
30. Findings from this question are also discussed in more detail in Chapter Four.
31. Although this pattern is not apparent in bivariate analysis, this finding suggests that after controlling for other differences between those who are widowed and those who are married/cohabiting (e.g. age) there is a significant difference.
32. For more information see the Alcohol Awareness Week website at http://www.alcoholawarenessweek.com/index.html. Note that Alcohol Awareness Week 2007 took place at the end of the SSA fieldwork period, by which point the vast majority of the interviews had already been conducted.
33. Plus author's own analysis of HEPS 2006 data, available from the UK Data Archive.
34. The banding of the answer categories of 2 or 3 units was designed to take into account the varying strengths of beer (for example 1 pint or 568ml of IPA at 3.8% ABV amounts to 2.2 units, whereas the same volume of a stronger beer such as Stella at 5.2 ABV is equal to 3 units).
35. Taking into account that a single pub measure will be between 1 and 1.5 units, depending on whether a 25ml or 35ml measure is used.
36. For more information on the alcohol content of different drinks, including popular brands, see the Drink Aware Trust website: www.drinkaware.co.uk
37. The 'correct' answer takes into account the variations in strength noted above.
38. For more information on sensible drinking guidelines see the Scottish Government's campaign website www.infoscotland.com/alcohol.
39. Interestingly, when SSA 2007 is compared to HEPS 2006, 41% of HEPS respondents who chose to answer in daily terms gave the correct answer for the male limit compared to 34% in SSA, while 53% in HEPS gave the correct answer for the female limit compared to 41% in SSA. As SSA did not include an option to answer in weekly terms it is possible that those who are more familiar with weekly limits were more likely to guess at the daily limit than answer 'Don't know' at this question.
40. The 2% difference presented here is not large. However, regression analysis shows that sex is significant after other factors, such as frequency of drinking, are taken into account.
41. NB in 2004, we did not use letters to represent the categories on the showcards. This was introduced in 2007 to allow respondents to answer without actually having to say to the interviewer how often they drink. The option of 'varies too much to say' was also added in 2007.
42. See derived variables [Wherepub] to [Whereels]
43. See derived variables [Drinkboy] to [Drinkels]
44. NB in 2004, people were not asked 'just to read the number' out from the card - this was introduced in 2007 for this whole suite of questions, to try and make it easier for people to say if they did not consider drinking to be particularly serious, likely to damage health, embarrassing etc.
45. The wording of this (and of bgehlth) was slightly different in 2007 to 2004. In 2004, we asked how likely this behaviour was to "seriously damage (his/her) health in the long term?" In 2007, we wanted to clarify that we were asking what would happen if this behaviour continued. In addition, in 2007 (but not 2004), respondents were asked just to read out the number, to try and make it easier for them to say they did not think this very likely (if they thought that was the case)
46. NB as with questions above, asking people 'just to read the number' out from the card was introduced in 2007 (in 2004, they read out the whole answer option).
47. The wording of this (and of chrhlth) was slightly different in 2007 to 2004. In 2004, we asked how likely this behaviour was to "seriously damage (his/her) health in the long term?" In 2007, we wanted to clarify that we were asking what would happen if this behaviour continued.
48. NB this scenario was new in 2007 - it was not asked about in the 2004 survey.
49. 'In general' was added to the 2007 version of this question, to clarify that we weren't asking about all social events.
50. The Scottish Centre for Social Research was formed in February 2004 as the result of a merger between The National Centre's existing organisation within Scotland and Scottish Health Feedback, an independent research consultancy.
51. Like many national surveys of households or individuals, in order to attain the optimum balance between sample efficiency and fieldwork efficiency the sample was clustered. The first stage of sampling involved randomly selecting postcode sectors. The sample frame of postcode sectors was also stratified (by region and the percentage of people in non-manual occupations) to improve the match between the sample profile and that of the Scottish population, while a further layer of stratification based on the Scottish Executive urban-rural classification enabled us to boost the number of addresses in remote and rural areas. For further details of the sample design, see para 6 below.
52. Lynn, Peter, et al (2001) Recommended standard final outcome categories and standard definitions of response rates for social surveys, Institute for Social and Economic Research
53. The stratification was based on 7 categories, with categories 4 and 5 of the Scottish Executive 8-fold classification collapsed together (i.e. Large urban areas (1), Other Urban Area (2), Accessible Small Town (3), Remote or Very Remote Small Town (4 and 5), Accessible Rural Area (6), Remote Rural Area (7), Very Remote Rural Area (8)). Categories 4 and 5 were collapsed in part because there was little difference between these areas in terms of known non-response - see point III above.
54. See http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/Overview for further details on the SIMD 55. These variables were created by the ScotCen/NatCen Survey Methods Unit. They are based on SIMD scores for all datazones, not just those included in the sample - so an individual who lives in the most deprived quintile of Scotland will also be included in the most deprived quintile in the SSA dataset.
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