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Coverage of alcohol consumption by national surveys in South Africa
Author(s) -
Probst Charlotte,
Shuper Paul A.,
Rehm Jürgen
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
addiction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0965-2140
DOI - 10.1111/add.13692
Subject(s) - per capita , alcohol consumption , demography , consumption (sociology) , sampling frame , alcohol , confidence interval , environmental health , geography , medicine , socioeconomics , population , economics , biology , biochemistry , social science , sociology
Abstract Background and aims Evidence suggests that adult per‐capita alcohol consumption, as estimated from self‐reports of nationally representative surveys, underestimates ‘true’ consumption, as measured as the sum of recorded and unrecorded consumption. The proportion of total adult alcohol per capita reported in representative surveys is usually labelled ‘coverage’. The aim of the present paper was to estimate coverage for South Africa under different scenarios of alcohol use assessment and ‘true’ consumption. Design Five nationally representative surveys from South Africa were used to estimate the prevalence of drinking and the grams per day among current drinkers. All surveys used a complex multi‐stage sampling frame that was accounted for by using survey weights. The total (recorded and unrecorded), the recorded and the adjusted total adult per‐capita alcohol consumption in South Africa served as different estimates of the ‘true’ consumption. Setting South Africa. Participants Alcohol use information was assessed on a total of 8115, 16 398 and 13 181 adults (15 years or older) in surveys from the years 2003, 2005 and 2008, respectively. Two surveys in 2012 included 27 070 and 18 688 adults. Measurements Coverage of the alcohol use reported in the surveys was calculated, compared with the ‘true’ adult per‐capita alcohol. Findings The survey data covered between 11.8% [2005; 95% uncertainty interval (UI) = 9.3–16.2%)] and 19.4% (2003; 95% UI = 14.9–24.2%) of the total alcohol used per capita. The highest coverage of 27.9% (95% UI = 22.4–36.8%) was observed when looking only at recorded alcohol in 2003. Conclusions Evidence from five nationally representative surveys assessing alcohol use suggests that less than 20% of the total adult per‐capita alcohol consumption in South Africa is reported in surveys.