Faculty of Behavioral Sciences, Department of Communication Studies, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.
J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2013 May;74(3):423-7. doi: 10.15288/jsad.2013.74.423.
Because minors generally report higher accessibility than one would expect on the basis of the "compliance rates" established by researchers (the percentage of stores that comply with age limits for sales of age-restricted products such as alcoholic beverages), we propose a new method to better depict the availability of age-restricted products for minors as an alternative to the compliance approach, which in our view is too narrow.
Underage mystery shoppers were assigned to buy alcohol in a store of their preference, using any (legally allowed) purchase method. The time required to buy alcohol was the main outcome variable. As a benchmark, the time required to buy soft drinks was recorded.
All underage mystery shoppers succeeded in buying alcohol, which means 100% availability. On average, buying alcohol took less than 10 minutes (including travel and shopping time), which was 2 minutes more than when purchasing soft drinks.
Compliance at an outlet level can misrepresent the actual availability to minors. Both the proposed approach to availability and a new approach to age validation indicate that the general assumption that the traditional methods of age validation can effectively prevent the commercial availability of age-restricted products to minors should be seriously questioned.
由于未成年人的可及性通常高于研究人员所确定的“合规率”（即遵守销售年龄限制规定的商店比例，这些规定限制了如酒精饮料等受限产品的销售）所预期的水平，因此我们提出了一种新方法，以替代合规方法来更好地描述受限产品对未成年人的可获得性，我们认为这种方法过于狭隘。
未成年神秘顾客被分配到他们喜欢的商店购买酒精，使用任何（合法允许的）购买方式。购买酒精所需的时间是主要的结果变量。作为基准，记录了购买软饮料所需的时间。
所有未成年神秘顾客都成功购买了酒精，这意味着 100%的可得性。平均而言，购买酒精所需的时间不到 10 分钟（包括旅行和购物时间），比购买软饮料多 2 分钟。
在销售点的合规性可能无法真实反映未成年人的实际可获得性。可用性的拟议方法和新的年龄验证方法均表明，传统的年龄验证方法可以有效防止受限产品在商业上向未成年人提供的假设应受到严重质疑。
