Teens Influenced by Alcohol Marketing More Likely to Report Dangerous Drinking.
Underage youths who cite alcohol marketing and the influence of adults, movies, or other media as the main reasons for choosing to consume a specific brand of alcohol are more likely to drink more and report adverse consequences from their drinking than youths who report other reasons for selecting a specific brand, new research co-authored by School of Public Health researchers suggests.
The findings, published April 20 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, add to a growing body of research suggesting youths’ exposure to alcohol marketing affects their drinking behavior. The study was conducted by a team of researchers from SPH and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth.
The researchers conducted an Internet survey in 2012 of 1,031 people between the ages of 13 and 20 who reported having consumed alcohol in the previous 30 days. Of those, 541 reported having a choice of multiple alcohol brands the last time they drank, and researchers wanted to know why they chose the brand they did.
Almost one in three underage drinkers reported choosing a brand of alcohol to drink based on branding and marketing, said lead study author Craig Ross, an SPH graduate who is president of Fiorente Media, Inc. and a consultant to the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth.
“These findings suggest that alcohol advertisements, media portrayals of alcohol use, and celebrity endorsements play a significant role in alcohol brand selection among young people,” he said.
The research team classified underage drinkers into five groups: “Brand Ambassadors,” who selected a brand because they identified with its marketed image (32.5 percent of respondents); “Tasters,” who selected a brand because they expected it to taste good (27.2 percent of respondents); “Bargain Hunters,” who selected a brand because it was inexpensive (18.5 percent of respondents); “Copycats,” who selected a brand because they’d seen adults drink it or seen it consumed in movies or other media (10.4 percent of respondents); and “Others” (11.5 percent of respondents).
The researchers examined whether different reasons for selecting a brand of alcohol were associated with riskier drinking behaviors. Brand Ambassadors and Copycats reported consuming the largest amount of alcohol and were most likely to report both heavy episodic drinking and negative alcohol-related health consequences, such as being injured while drinking.
“The prevalence of heavy drinking among these two groups and the high rates of negative health consequences they report are of particular concern,” said study author David Jernigan, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. “Further research to explore methods of offsetting negative influences of alcohol marketing and promotion on our children’s health is sorely needed.”
Alcohol advertising in the US is primarily regulated by the industry itself. Several leading public health groups and officials, including the National Research Council, the Institute of Medicine, and 24 state and territorial attorneys general have called upon the alcohol industry to strengthen its standards to reduce youth exposure to alcohol advertising and marketing.
Alcohol is the most commonly used drug among youths in the United States and is responsible, on average, for the deaths of 4,300 underage persons each year.
Ross’ work on the study, as a student finishing his PhD in epidemiology at SPH, was honored last year by the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine, which awarded him the SAHM/Mead Johnson Nutritionals New Investigator Award at its annual meeting.
“I was greatly honored to receive this award from the leading medical organization focused on adolescent health,” Ross said.
Co-authors on the study included: Michael Siegel and William DeJong, professors of community health sciences, and Timothy Naimi, associate professor of community health sciences and medicine. The research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.