Premium
Estimating changes in unrecorded alcohol consumption in Norway using indicators of harm
Author(s) -
Norstrom Thor
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
addiction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0965-2140
DOI - 10.1046/j.1360-0443.1998.931015319.x
Subject(s) - per capita , harm , alcohol consumption , consumption (sociology) , environmental health , injury prevention , poison control , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , alcohol , occupational safety and health , medicine , demography , psychology , social psychology , population , biology , sociology , biochemistry , social science , pathology
Aim. To assess the value of using indicators of alcohol‐related harm to estimate changes in unrecorded per capita consumption of alcohol. Design. Unrecorded consumption was estimated from the discrepancy between the observed changes in a number of alcohol‐related harm indicators and the changes that would be expected from changes in recorded consumption. The results were compared with estimates of unrecorded consumption from survey data. Measurements. Four indicators of alcohol‐related harm were used: alcohol‐related mortality, assaults, drunken driving, and suicide. Estimates of unrecorded consumption from survey data for five different years were used as benchmarks. Findings. The best performing indicators were alcohol‐related mortality, suicide and assaults, in that order. Combining these indicators yielded a prediction error averaging 12% in comparison with the benchmarks. Conclusions. The method seems worthy of further applications, but it should be regarded as a supplement rather than as a substitute for other approaches.