Alcohol and adolescents

In this episode, Jude Ball (a member of the Adolescent Health Research Group) discusses alcohol use in New Zealand’s adolescent population.

Topics

intro
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What are the current recommendations?
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Age of onset, amount, and frequency
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Where do young people get alcohol from?
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Does the source of supply matter?
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Alcohol related harm in our youth?
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Does frequency and amount correlate with harm?
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Are "early drinkers" they more likely to develop and addiction to alcohol?
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Are populations within NZ more at risk from alcohol consumption and associated harm?
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What factors have been shown to be protective as far as alcohol consumption and harm?
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Mental health and other comorbidities
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Supplying alcohol to young people as a parent
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Screening for alcohol and drug use
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Screening tools for youth
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Addressing concerns about a young person’s drinking
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Referral and community agencies
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Take-home messages
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Take home messages

Adolescents are more vulnerable to alcohol-related harm than adults
Binge drinking remains the dominant style of drinking for this age group, putting many young people at risk of acute alcohol harms (e.g. injury, unwanted and/or unprotected sex)
Enquire about alcohol use as part of getting to know a young person and doing a comprehensive assessment
When talking about alcohol or other drug use, it is important to assure young people about confidentiality and take a non-judgemental tone

Resources

Alcohol Ministry of Health
tamariki and mokopuna alcohol.org.nz

Presenter

Jude Ball

Senior Research Fellow

Dr Jude Ball is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, and a member of the Adolescent Health Research Group (the researchers behind the Youth 2000 survey series, a nationally-representative survey of adolescent health and wellbeing). Her research focuses on the impact of the changing social and policy context on youth trends, with a particular focus on alcohol, tobacco and e-cigarette use. With colleagues, she has recently published a series of factsheets on adolescent alcohol use and related harm, based on Youth2000 survey data.