@article{ref1,
title="Who under-reports their alcohol consumption in telephone surveys and by how much? An application of the Yesterday Method in a national Canadian substance use survey",
journal="Addiction",
year="2014",
author="Stockwell, Tim and Zhao, Jinhui and Macdonald, Scott",
volume="109",
number="10",
pages="1657-1666",
abstract="BACKGROUND AND AIM: Adjustments for under-reporting in alcohol surveys have been used in epidemiological and policy studies which assume that all drinkers underestimate their consumption equally. This study aims to describe a method of estimating how under-reporting of alcohol consumption might vary by age, gender and consumption level. <br><br>METHOD: The Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey (CADUMS) 2008 to 2010 (N= 43,371) asks about beverage specific 'yesterday' consumption (BSY) and Quantity-Frequency (QF). Observed drinking frequencies for different age and gender groups were calculated from BSY and used to correct values of F in QF. Beverage-specific correction factors for quantity (Q) were calculated by comparing consumption estimated from BSY with sales data. <br><br>RESULTS: Drinking frequency was underestimated by males (Z=24.62, p<0.001) and females (Z=17.46, p<0.001) in the QF as assessed by comparing with frequency and quantity of Yesterday drinking. Spirits consumption was underestimated by 65.94% compared with sales data, wine by 38.35% and beer by 49.02%. After adjusting Q and F values accordingly, regression analysis found alcohol consumption to be under-estimated significantly more by younger drinkers (e.g.82.9 ±1.19% for underage drinkers vs 70.38 ±1.54% for those 65+, p<0.001) and by low risk more than high risk drinkers (76.25 ±0.34% vs 49.22 ±3.01%, p<0.001). Under-reporting did not differ by gender. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol consumption surveys can use the Beverage-Specific Yesterday method to correct for underreporting of consumption among sub-groups. Alcohol consumption among Canadians appears to be under-reported to an equal degree by men and women. Younger drinkers underreport alcohol consumption to a greater degree than do older, while low risk drinkers underestimate more than do medium and high-risk.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0965-2140",
doi="10.1111/add.12609",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/add.12609"
}