Generational shifts in attitudes and beliefs about alcohol: An age-period-cohort approach

February 2023
Citation: 
Livingston, M., Callinan, S., Pennay, A., Yuen, W.S., Taylor, N. & Dietze, P. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 243 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2022.109755.

Alcohol consumption has declined markedly in Australia in the past two decades, with distinct generational patterns. The underlying reason for this shift remains unclear and there has been little work assessing how attitudes and beliefs about alcohol have shifted in population sub-groups.

Using seven waves of survey data from 2001-2019 (n=166,093 respondents aged 14+), authors from NDRI and colleagues assessed age, time-period and birth cohort effects on trends in key measures of alcohol attitudes including disapproval of regular alcohol use, perceptions of safe drinking levels, and perception that alcohol causes the most deaths of any drug in Australia.

Perceived safe levels of dinking have fallen across the whole Australian population and while disapproval of regular use has been stable at the population level, findings showed a sharp increase in disapproval of regular drinking for people born in the 1990s or later, which may be contributing to reductions in drinking that have been reported in these cohorts.

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