Partners and International Organizations
(English)
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Social Research Unit of Alcohol Studies, National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health,
Helsinki (FIN), Centro Alcologico Integrato, San Luca, Ospedale di Careggi,
Firenze (I), Free University Berlin, Institute for Medical Informatics, Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Berlin (D),
INSERM, Villejuif CEDEX (F), Azienda Sanitaria 10, V.O. Epidemiologia, CSPO, Florence (I), Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems (SFA/ISPA),
Lausanne (CH), University of Maastricht, Medical Sociology, Maastricht (NL),
Prague Psychiatric Center,
Praha 8 - Bohnice (CZ), CREDES, Paris (F), Alcohol and Health Research Centre,
City Hospital, Edinburgh (GB)
Department of Social Medicine, University of Göteborg, Vasa Hospital, Göteborg (S)
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Abstract
(English)
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'Alcohol Consumption and Alcohol Problems among Women in European Countries' is a concerted action project funded by the BIOMED-II programme of the European Union The project involves the collaboration of alcohol epidemiologists from nine other European countries: the Czech Republic (supported by special EU funding), Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Scotland (United Kingdom), Sweden, and Switzerland (supported by Swiss federal funding). The main objectives of the study were then broken down into various research tasks. Project partners were assigned to the tasks as co-ordinators, responsible for gathering the needed data from all other partners and drafting the respective research report. The tasks have resulted in reports on the following topics. 1) The social position of women and the drinking cultures in the BIOMED study countries: Women now are more a part of the labour force than before, and to available alcohol consumption data, we might infer that a decrease in gender differences in alcohol use may be studied in relationship to the shrinking of families and to their structural changes. The study countries represent differing drinking cultures that can be found in Europe. The main distinction lies between the northern 'dry' areas (Sweden, Finland) characterised by alcoholic beverages being consumed irregularly, often episodically and generally outside of meals, and the southern 'wet' areas (France, Italy, and to a lesser degree Switzerland) where wine is consumed daily with meals. Other study countries find themselves with mixtures of these two main drinking traditions. 2) An assessment of the comparability and requirements for standardisation of alcohol consumption units and alcohol measures: The surveys differed substantially in both type and number of questions on alcohol. Important from a gender point of view is the conclusion that, compared to men, women's consumption and the prevalence of heavy drinking among women is more strongly underestimated when using simple questions. 3) Drinking patterns of women in nine European countries: The different gender ratios in drinking variables show that the variation between these European societies in the prevalence of current drinkers is very small. There is no single age group of women which consumes more than any age group of men. After controlling for age, women with high education tend to consume more alcohol than women with low education in many societies. Unemployment seems to be more strongly related to women's drinking than to that of men. 4) Investigating the gender gap in alcohol consumption in Finland, Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland: A repeated survey analysis: The convergence or gender gap hypothesis states that women may have started to adopt the drinking behaviours of men as a result of the ongoing progress of the emancipation movement in which women increasingly move into professions and/or lifestyles similar to men's. This is called the convergence or gender gap hypothesis. A significant closing of the gender gap could only be found in Finland. 5) Women's roles and women's drinking: How do they combine? This task analyses the influence of role combinations on heavy drinking. The results show clearly that roles and combinations of roles have differing influences on heavy drinking in each country depending on the social position of women within a country. 6) Life stage, alcohol consumption patterns, alcohol-related consequences and gender: Alcohol-related problems measured in the surveys were classified as Internal, e.g. guilt and concerns about loss of control, and External e.g. problems at home, at work and criticisms by others about drinking. Life stage, gender, drinking level and binge drinking had similar effects on the proportion of internal and external alcohol problems reported in all the eight surveys. More internal problems were reported and the ratio for men to women reporting problems was higher for external than for internal problems. 7) Alcohol-related mortality in Europe: A tentative analysis: Deaths directly attributable to alcohol (DAA) represent the 'official' number of deaths due to alcohol recorded in mortality registries. Deaths indirectly attributable to alcohol (IAA) are estimated from epidemiological parameters. Together, these two statistics make up what is called 'alcohol related mortality' (ARM = DAA+IAA). ARM rates agree with per capita alcohol intake in most countries. There is indication that among females the underestimation of causes directly attributable to alcohol tends to be stronger than in males.
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