TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2013//
TI  - Alcohol policy changes and trends in adolescent drinking in Finland from 1981 to 2011
JO  - Alcohol and alcoholism
A1  - Lintonen, Tomi
A1  - Karlsson, Thomas
A1  - Nevalainen, Jaakko
A1  - Konu, Anne
SP  - 620
EP  - 626
VL  - 48
IS  - 5
N2  - AIMS: To test if changes in national alcohol policy have had an impact on alcohol use among 12- to 18-year-old adolescents in Finland over a 30-year period. METHODS: Frequencies of drinking any amounts of alcohol and drinking alcohol until really drunk from bi-annual repeated cross-sectional surveys from 1981 to 2011 were examined against a national alcohol policy review using nationally representative samples of 12-, 14-, 16- and 18-year-old adolescents (n = 99,724) in Finland. RESULTS: Twelve-year-olds' alcohol drinking remained rare throughout the period. Drinking among 18-year-olds generally increased throughout the period. Significant increases until the late 1990s and decreases thereafter were observed in 14- and 16-year-olds' drinking patterns. A sharp increase was predicted between 2003 and 2005 as a result of EU-related processes, but instead decrease was observed among 14-16-year-olds. The tests of hypothesized decrease from 2005 to 2011 due to tightening alcohol policy including several tax raises produced mixed results. CONCLUSION: Alcohol policy changes between 1981 and 2011 seem not to have had noticeable influence on alcohol drinking or drunkenness among the under-aged in Finland. Conspicuous increases seen in population total consumption in association with EU-related developments have not materialized among adolescents.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0735-0414
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/alcalc/agt048
ID  - ref1
ER  -