Normalization of Non-Drinking? Health, School Situation and Social Relations among Swedish Ninth Graders That Drink and Do Not Drink Alcohol

Jonas Raninen, Peter Larm, Johan Svensson, Michael Livingston, Lars Sjödin and Patrik Karlsson
Additional contact information
Jonas Raninen: Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN), 116 64 Stockholm, Sweden
Peter Larm: Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Johan Svensson: Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN), 116 64 Stockholm, Sweden
Michael Livingston: Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
Lars Sjödin: Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
Patrik Karlsson: Department of Social Work, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-9

Abstract: Alcohol consumption is a major contributor to the disease burden among adolescents. The adolescent alcohol abstainer is still often depicted as problematic in the research literature and in prominent theoretical frameworks. However, over the past two decades, there has been a marked trend of declining youth drinking in Sweden. The declining trend has led to a shift in the majority behaviour of youth, from drinking to non-drinking. It is plausible that this trend has also shifted the position of non-drinkers. This paper examines the position of non-drinkers in a nationally representative sample of Swedish adolescents. A survey was carried out in 2017 in 500 randomly selected schools. A total of 5549 respondents (15–16-year-olds) agreed to participate and answered the questionnaire. A minority (42.8%) had consumed alcohol during their lifetime. The results show that non-drinkers had better health and school performance when compared to drinkers. The results also showed that there were no differences in the social position between non-drinkers and drinkers. These findings are new and indicate a changed position of non-drinkers among Swedish adolescents. With non-drinking being the majority behaviour among Swedish adolescents this seems to have shifted the position of non-drinkers. There is a need for research on the long-term importance of not drinking during adolescence.

Keywords: alcohol; adolescent; survey; Sweden; non-drinking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11201/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11201/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:21:p:11201-:d:664374

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().