Trends in alcohol use among Czech adolescents: findings from the HBSC study 2014–2022

Objectives: The present study aims to examine trends in adolescent alcohol use over the period from 2014 to 2022.

Methods: Data from the last three Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) surveys conducted in 2014, 2018 and 2022 were used for this study. Three measures of adolescent alcohol use have been chosen for analyses: lifetime alcohol use, last 30 days alcohol use, and repeated lifetime drunkenness. The analyses comprised calculation of period-specific prevalence estimates and testing of the significance of between-period changes using survey-adjusted logistic regression models.

Results: Comparing prevalence rates between the periods, consistent decrease in adolescent alcohol use becomes apparent, particularly for drop of rates in 2018 compared to those in 2014. The corresponding data on the prevalence of lifetime alcohol use among 13-year-old boys was 59.7% in 2014 and 44.2% in 2018; and among 15-year-old boys 80.4% in 2014 and 74.9% in 2018. For 13-year-old girls, the estimated prevalence was 46.9% in 2014 and 41.1% in 2018; and for 15-year-old girls 83.7% in 2014 and 75.9% in 2018. This is the case for repeated lifetime drunkenness, and the decrease is consistent across boys and girls, as well as the respective age groups. In survey waves 2018 and 2022, we do not see a statistically significant decline, but rather a stabilisation of assessed prevalence at a level from the previous wave of the study.

Conclusions: The decline in alcohol use among Czech adolescents is part of a global trend of reducing alcohol drinking among young people, on the background of social mechanisms including the change of cultural status of alcohol and changes in young people's leisure preferences.