Abstract
The main objective of this study is to determine key factors that may have a significant effect on alcohol consumption in Turkey. For this purpose, the cross-sectional data obtained from the Turkish Health Survey conducted in 2010 and 2012 by the Turkish Statistical Institute were analyzed through the multinomial probit model. Results revealed that several key variables were found to be a significant determinant of alcohol consumption, such as gender, age, education, marital status, income, general health status, tooth brushing frequency, situation of violence, fruit consumption frequency, tobacco use, exposure to tobacco smoke, and survey year. It is apparent that alcoholics need help to get rid of an addiction. Therefore, it would be inevitable for governments to intervene through national and international public health authorities. In particular, the ability of governments to design and implement comprehensive prevention strategies that combine the strengths of different policy approaches is critical to success.
TopIntroduction
Alcohol is legal psychoactive substance that is widely used in the world and has addictive properties. Particularly, excessive alcohol consumption increases the probability of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and many other chronic disease occurrences, besides this is a reason for preventable premature deaths. The protection of the health of population by preventing and reducing the harmful use of alcohol is one of the main objectives of the governments. More alcohol use than alcohol consumption limits recommended by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has been defined as the use of bad alcohol. It is stated that alcohol abuse can cause physical, psychological, economic and social negative effects on individuals in this situation.
Since extraction of alcohol from the body is slower than the absorption, it causes a structure that r drunkenness and intoxications that disrupt the normal functioning of the body. Excessive alcohol consumption can lead to undesirable consequences such as intoxication, accidents, violence and reduced productivity. It can also contribute to the development of cancer, brain, liver, heart and bone pathologies and mental disorders.
In 2012, nearly 3.3 million deaths or 5.9% of global deaths were associated with alcohol consumption. There are significant gender differences in the proportion of alcohol-related global deaths. For example, 7.6% of deaths among males in 2012 and 4% of deaths among females were alcohol-dependent. In 2012, there were 139 million lives that resulted in disability due to alcohol consumption. There is also wide geographical variability in the rates of alcohol-related deaths and disabilities.
In order to avoid the negative consequences of excessive alcohol use, governments and public health organizations have approved the rules of “sensitive drinking” globally. For example, NICE recommends that those who choose to consume alcohol on a regular basis should not exceed three to four units per day. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that alcohol use is the third most important risk factor that increases the burden of disease in developed countries. Besides, thanks to the alcohol policies they developed, governments aim to reduce the harmful use of alcohol and the health and social burden that can be linked to alcohol in society. Such policies can be formulated at a global, regional, multinational, national and sub-national level. Most of the countries that are members of the World Health Organization have been working to reduce the use of alcohol in recent years. The majority of reporting countries have implemented enacted national alcohol policies. High-rate tax or price implementation for the solution of the problem of excessive alcohol consumption has attracted great attention among public health experts and policy makers (Nelson, 2014).
Young adulthood, defined between the ages of 18 and 29, refers to a critical period of development in a person's life. It is evident that the health behaviors adopted by young adults in these ages will affect long-term body health, which will continue in the following years. Therefore, the positive habits they will gain during this period will have a positive effect on their overall health status. The health behaviors adopted by young adults not only have profound and long-term consequences for their health in their later lives but will play a crucial role in future generations when they become parents as well.
Average alcohol consumption per capita for adults remained almost constant in the last twenty years between 1992 and 2012, but an increase has been observed in the last five years. In young people, alcohol consumption is increasing, especially in low-income and middle-income countries (WHO, 2014). Some of the reasons for young people consuming more alcohol are low cost of alcoholic beverages, the presence of more extensive alcohol use areas, alcohol promotion especially for young people and in many societies these can be considered as the acceptable form of alcohol consumption.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Binge Drinking: Four or more drinks consumed on one occasion for female and five or more drinks consumed on one occasion for male.
Healthcare Expenditures: Theoretically, health expenditures used in the calculation of health expenditures are expenditures for preventive, rehabilitative health services, medications and out-of-pocket payments.
Economic Costs of Alcohol: The price paid for alcohol consumption and cost of invisible expenses including expenses that seem such as material damage, treatment costs, and loss of labor.
Statistical model: The statistical model is a mathematical model for formalizing the relations between variables in the form of mathematical equations.
Excessive Alcohol Consumption: It can be defined in two groups for female and male.
Cross-Sectional Data: The data collected from different units at a given moment of time is called cross-sectional data.
Heavy Drinking: Eight or more drinks per week for female and 15 or more drinks per week for male.
Multinomial Probit Regression: It is a method employed in the analysis of categorical data. Multinomial probit regression can be utilized when the dependent variable has more than two categories. If assumption of independence of irrelevant alternatives is unavailable for the multinomial logistic regression model, the alternative multinomial probit regression model is recommended.