Assessing alcohol guidelines in teenagers: Results from a 10-year prospective study

Abstract

Objective; To assess the value of drinking guidelines applied in adolescence for predicting alcohol-related outcomes in young adulthood. Methods: We conducted an eight-wave, population-based cohort study of 696 males and 824 females in Victoria between 1992 and 2003. Adolescent drinking was assessed at five survey waves, in six month intervals, from mean age 15.4-17.4 years. We created three measures of adolescent alcohol use using categories from NHMRC drinking guidelines: risky/ high-risk drinking in the short and long term (2001), and high-risk drinking (2007). Each measure was defined according to the number of waves at which drinking was reported at or above the designated level during ..