The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, Level 6, Jane Foss Russell Building, G02, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, Level 1, AGSM (G27), Gate 11, Botany Street, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2020 Sep 1;214:108172. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.108172. Epub 2020 Jul 10.
Recent studies suggest that young adult participation in, and volume of, alcohol consumption has decreased. However, the evidence on trends in harmful alcohol consumption in this age group is limited. The current paper aims to examine changes over time in harmful alcohol consumption using a robust, widely employed measure.
The literature was systematically searched for articles reporting on Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores in young adults aged 18-24 years. The key data extracted were year of measurement and mean AUDIT score (proportion above clinical cut-off was not relevant for these analyses). Cross-temporal meta-analysis was applied to the extracted data.
A decrease was found in young adults' AUDIT scores measured between 1989 and 2015 (b=-0.13, β=-0.38, p = 0.015, 95 % CI=-0.24, -0.03), representing a 0.63 standard deviation change over this period. Variance did not change over this time, suggesting scores decreased equally over the distribution.
Results indicate that harmful alcohol consumption in young adults may have declined between 1989 and 2015. Despite the continued problems posed by dependence and short and long-term harms, these promising findings offer hope that the considerable alcohol-related disease burden in this age group may be reduced. Ongoing data collection is required to evaluate whether these declines in young adulthood persist into later life, and future research should explore the reasons for declining harmful alcohol consumption in young adults.
最近的研究表明，年轻人对酒精的摄入量和参与度有所减少。然而，关于该年龄段有害性饮酒趋势的证据有限。本文旨在使用可靠的广泛应用的方法来检验有害性饮酒的时间变化。
系统地检索了有关 18-24 岁年轻人的酒精使用障碍识别测试（AUDIT）分数的文章。提取的主要数据是测量年份和平均 AUDIT 分数（超过临床截止值的比例与这些分析无关）。对提取的数据进行了跨时间荟萃分析。
1989 年至 2015 年间年轻人的 AUDIT 分数下降（b=-0.13，β=-0.38，p=0.015，95%CI=-0.24，-0.03），这代表在此期间发生了 0.63 个标准差的变化。这段时间内方差没有变化，这表明分数在整个分布中均匀下降。
结果表明，1989 年至 2015 年间年轻人的有害性饮酒可能有所减少。尽管年轻人的酒精依赖问题和短期及长期危害仍然存在，但这些有希望的发现表明，该年龄段与酒精相关的疾病负担可能会减轻。需要继续收集数据，以评估年轻人的这些下降趋势是否持续到以后的生活，未来的研究应该探索年轻人有害性饮酒减少的原因。
