In 2009, the Chief Medical Officer of England published the first official guidance on alcohol aimed specifically at children and young people.
Guidance on the consumption of alcohol by children and young people. A report by the Chief Medical Officer
It recommended that the healthiest and safest option was for children to remain alcohol free up to age 18. If they did drink alcohol it should not be at least until the age of 15. For young people aged 15 to 17, it was suggested they should only drink in a supervised environment, and no more than once a week.
The guidance was based on a body of evidence that drinking at a young age, and particularly heavy or regular drinking, can result in physical or mental health problems, impair brain development, and put children at risk of alcohol-related accident or injury. More broadly it is also associated with missing or falling behind at school, violent and antisocial behaviour, and unsafe sexual behaviour1.
The 2012 Alcohol Strategy had a particular focus on excessive drinking by adults, but also included the ambition to achieve ‘a sustained reduction in both the numbers of 11 to 15 year olds drinking alcohol and the amounts consumed’.
Government alcohol strategy 2012
Attempting to accurately measure alcohol consumption among young people presents similar challenges to surveys of adults. Recall of their drinking can be erroneous and the majority of pupils’ drinking is in informal settings where the quantities they drink are not necessarily standard measures. They are also not very knowledgeable about the alcoholic strength of different drinks. See appendix B for more background on the methods that were used to measure alcohol consumption.
This part includes information on drinking prevalence, frequency, and alcohol consumption levels including drunkenness.
Changes to question to establish whether a pupil had drunk alcohol (2016)
Prior to 2016, the question used to establish whether a pupil had drunk alcohol was:
‘Have you ever had a proper alcoholic drink – a whole drink, not just a sip? Please don’t count drinks labelled low alcohol’.
Before the 2016 survey took place the questionnaire was tested with a group of pupils and this question caused confusion. In general, pupils thought the use of the word ‘proper’ meant the question referred to spirits only. They were also unaware of what would be considered a ‘low alcohol’ drink and some assumed low alcohol would include beer, cider, cocktails and alcopops.
In light of this feedback, the question was changed in the 2016 survey to:
“Have you ever had an alcoholic drink – a whole drink, not just a sip?”
Whilst this means the survey now gives an improved picture of the proportion of young people who have drunk alcohol, comparisons with years prior to 2016 are not possible. However, large directional changes such as whether prevalence has decreased over a long period of time can be made as the impact of the new wording is small in comparison, (although the exact size of the change cannot be calculated).
This change to the initial alcohol question may also have had an impact on the more detailed questions which follow. This is because some of these were only asked of those pupils who answered ‘yes’ to the initial question on drinking alcohol, so the change to this question may lead to a slightly different group of pupils answering the more detailed questions than in earlier years.
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1. Viner R, and Taylor B, (2007) Adult outcomes of binge drinking in adolescence: findings from a UK national birth cohort. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 61: 902-907.