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Peril, chance, adventure: concepts of risk, alcohol use and risky behavior in young adults
Author(s) -
Leigh Barbara C.
Publication year - 1999
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.1360-0443.1999.9433717.x
Subject(s) - harm , generality , psychology , poison control , population , human factors and ergonomics , injury prevention , suicide prevention , association (psychology) , social psychology , medicine , environmental health , psychotherapist
This paper discusses issues in applying concepts of "risk" to alcohol use. There is a wide variety of definitions of "risk," including dimensions of positive vs. negative aspects of risk‐taking, short‐term vs. long‐term harm, generality vs. specificity of risk behaviors, knowledge of probability of harm, and objective vs. subjective risk. Alcohol can play a role in risky behavior on multiple levels. The paper describes the methods used to examine a link between alcohol and risk‐taking (population‐based, person‐based, event‐based and experimental methods) and illustrates these methods from research findings on the association of alcohol to risky driving, crime and violent behavior, and sexual risk‐taking. Theoretical models of the association of alcohol and risk‐taking are outlined, and the implications of these models for alcohol policy and prevention are discussed.