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A study of the differential predictive utility of alcohol expectancies in predicting the frequency of drinking, intoxication and intake levels of alcohol among adolescents in a group of 1,781 high school students in the San Francisco Bay Area reveals that alcohol expectancies predict intake levels better than frequency and intoxication. The three drinking measures are differentially correlated with positive and negative expectancies, and the expectancies vary with gender. The results have implications for treatment measures of drinking and related problems among adolescents.

The relationship between alcohol expectancies and work-related drinking was investigated in a survey of 984 employees from a large unionized manufacturing plant. Respondents were asked about their drinking at work, just prior to work, and in other contexts. Alcohol expectancies were measured by asking how likely or unlikely it was that work-related drinking would lead to 13 personal consequences. The items for this scale were derived from ethnographic interviews and observations in the plant and from a review of the workplace literature. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the expectancy items formed two scales representing positive and negative consequences. These scales predicted work-related drinking in a simultaneous equations path analysis, even when general drinking practices and background variables were controlled. The analysis also indicated that workers who were younger, Caucasian, hourly, on evening or night shifts, and frequent or heavy drinkers outside of work may be at risk for work-related drinking because of their alcohol expectancies.

Objectives. The relationships between television beer advertising and drinking knowledge, beliefs, and intentions were investigated in a survey of schoolchildren. The research was guided by a theoretical model specifying that awareness of advertising, and not mere exposure, is necessary for it to have an effect on beliefs or behaviors. Methods. Participants were a random sample of 468 fifth-and sixth-grade schoolchildren from a northern California community. Data were collected in the home with a combination of self-administered questionnaires and structured interviews. Results. Nonrecursive statistical modeling indicated that awareness of television beer advertising was related to more favorable beliefs about drinking, to greater knowledge of beer brands and slogans, and to increased intentions to drink as an adult. The effects of advertising awareness of knowledge, beliefs, and intentions were maintained when the reciprocal effects of beliefs, knowledge, and intentions on awareness were controlled. Conclusions. The findings suggest that alcohol advertising pay predispose young people to drinking. As a result, efforts to prevent drinking and drinking problems among young people should give attention to countering the potential effects of alcohol advertising. (Am J Public Health. 1994;84: 254-259), Positive beliefs about drinking appear to be strongly associated with children's awareness of beer advertisements. A total of 468 children between 10 and 13 years old completed questionnaires and were interviewed about their knowledge of beer commercials and their intentions to drink when older. Boys were more likely than girls to report that they would drink beer as adults. Boys were also able to name more brands of beer and associate more brands with their slogans. Children who believed their parents or their peers approved of drinking were more likely to believe that drinking had positive consequences rather than negative ones. Children who knew more about beer advertising reported that their parents drank more frequently. Exposure to beer advertising may encourage children to drink.

Content and Effects on Children and Adolescents Alcohol portrayals on television and alcohol advertising often show drinking as glamorous and without serious consequences. Although television portrayals have not been shown [...]

Abstract Background We pursue two primary goals in this article: (1) to test a methodology and develop a dataset on U.S. local-level alcohol policy ordinances, and (2) to evaluate the presence, comprehensiveness, and stringency of eight local alcohol policies in 50 diverse California cities in relationship to recommended best practices in both public health literature and governmental recommendations to reduce underage drinking. Methods Following best practice recommendations from a wide array of authoritative sources, we selected eight local alcohol policy topics (e.g., conditional use permits, responsible beverage service training, social host ordinances, window/billboard advertising ordinances), and determined the presence or absence as well as the stringency (restrictiveness) and comprehensiveness (number of provisions) of each ordinance in each of the 50 cities in 2009. Following the alcohol policy literature, we created scores for each city on each type of ordinance and its associated components. We used these data to evaluate the extent to which recommendations for best practices to reduce underage alcohol use are being followed. Results (1) Compiling datasets of local-level alcohol policy laws and their comprehensiveness and stringency is achievable, even absent comprehensive, on-line, or other legal research tools. (2) We find that, with some exceptions, most of the 50 cities do not have high scores for presence, comprehensiveness, or stringency across the eight key policies. Critical policies such as responsible beverage service and deemed approved ordinances are uncommon, and, when present, they are generally neither comprehensive nor stringent. Even within policies that have higher adoption rates, central elements are missing across many or most cities’ ordinances. Conclusion This study demonstrates the viability of original legal data collection in the U.S. pertaining to local ordinances and of creating quantitative scores for each policy type to reflect comprehensiveness and stringency. Analysis of the resulting dataset reveals that, although the 50 cities have taken important steps to improve public health with regard to underage alcohol use and abuse, there is a great deal more that needs to be done to bring these cities into compliance with best practice recommendations.

This study examines the frequency and nature of alcohol and tobacco advertising in a random sample of 166 televised sports events representing 443.7 hours of network programming broadcast from fall 1990 through summer 1992. More commercials appear for alcohol products than for any other beverage. Beer commercial predominate and include images at odds with recommendations from former Surgeon General Koop. The audience is also exposed to alcohol and tobacco advertising through the appearances of stadium signs, other on-site promotions, and verbal or visual brief product sponsorships. Moderation messages and public service announcements are rare. (Am J Public Health. 1994;84: 297-299), Alcoholic beverage commercials appear more frequently than commercials for any other beverages during televised sporting events. A random sample of 443.7 hours of televised sports events was videotaped between 1990 and 1992. The videotapes were analyzed to determine the frequency of tobacco and alcohol commercials as well as the appearance of company logos at events and product sponsorship announcements. Seventy-seven percent of all beverage commercials were for alcohol, totalling 685 alcohol advertisements. An average of 1.5 alcohol commercials appeared during each hour of televised sports. Beer commercials occurred more frequently than either wine or wine cooler commercials. Only three of the commercials and 10 product sponsorships advised moderation in drinking. There were 10 public service announcements about drinking. Tobacco advertising occurs primarily through stadium signs or on-site promotions. These promotions appeared approximately 1.5 times each hour. There were no anti-smoking messages broadcast.

OVER THE PAST TWO decades, an emerging literature on the influence of environmental factors on drinking behavior has broadened the scope of occupational alcohol research. The significance of the environmental [...], Objective: This article reports on an investigation of the relationship of social control mechanisms at work to drinking practices of 10,000 salaried and hourly employees working in the same U.S. industry, with the same union, but in two different work environments. One work environment reflected an organizational culture that is traditional to U.S. management; the other was based on a nontraditional Japanese transplant model. Method: The research team used a combination of methods including in-home surveys (N = 1,723; 1,378 men) and ethnography (110 semistructured interviews and 200 hours of direct observation inside the plants). Respondents were asked about general and work-related drinking, perceptions of drinking norms, strengths or weaknesses of alcohol-related policies and procedures for policy enforcement. Results: Although overall consumption rates in both populations were similar, significant differences between the two samples existed regarding work-related drinking. The Traditional (i.e., U.S.) model was associated with more permissive norms regarding drinking before or during work shifts (including breaks) and higher workplace drinking rates than the Transplant (i.e., Japanese) model. Analyses revealed that alcohol policies, and the extent to which policies are actually enforced, predicted drinking norms and alcohol availability at work. Drinking norms, in turn, predicted work-related drinking and accounted for differences in alcohol consumption between the two worksites. Analyses of ethnographic data provided descriptive understandings of aspects of the two organizational cultures that disabled mechanisms for social control of drinking in one setting and enabled those mechanisms in the other. Conclusions: These understandings of how social control mechanisms predict work-related drinking practices provide guidelines for alcohol problem prevention in a specific kind of occupational environment. However, our identification of aspects of social control that successfully regulate workplace drinking is applicable to other kinds of occupational settings as well. (J. Stud. Alcohol 61: 203-219, 2000)

A growing body of evidence suggests that some workers show higher rates of alcohol consumption (Mandell et al., 1992), drink more during working hours (Barnes and Welte, 1988; Bray et [...], Objective: This article investigates the relationship between subjective social and physical availability of alcohol at work and work-related drinking. Method: We integrated survey and ethnographic methods to determine if and why physical and social availability of alcohol predicted work-related drinking in a manufacturing plant with approximately 6,000 employees. Survey data were obtained from in-home interviews with 984 randomly selected workers. Respondents were asked about their overall and work-related drinking, their perceptions of the ease of obtaining or consuming alcohol in the plant, the work-related drinking of others and their approval/disapproval of work-related drinking by co-workers. Ethnographic data were obtained from 3 years of periodic onsite observations and semistructured interviews with key informants to investigate factors underlying alcohol availability and drinking at work. Results: Structural equations modeling of the survey data revealed that subjective social availability of alcohol at work, and particularly perceived drinking by friends and co-workers, was the strongest predictor of work-related drinking. Typical frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption and heavy drinking were predictive also. Subjective physical availability of alcohol was not significantly related to drinking at or before work. Findings from the ethnographic analyses explained survey findings and described characteristics of the work culture that served to encourage and support alcohol availability and drinking. Conclusions: These results are the first to show significant relationships between alcohol availability and drinking at work, to explain dynamics of that relationship and to demonstrate the potential risks of using only quantitative or only qualitative findings as the basis for prevention. (J. Stud. Alcohol 60: 383-393, 1999)

Objectives: This exploratory study examined pain management practices among American Indians and Alaska Natives in the service area of a rural tribal clinic in Southern California. Methods: Researchers invited 325 individuals to complete an anonymous survey in clinic waiting rooms and tribal gatherings. Analyses of the 295 eligible responses included calculating frequencies and conducting multiple logistic regressions and a Mantel‐Haenszel analysis. Results: Among respondents in this study, being male, younger, and having less education were strong predictors for riskier methods for managing pain. Conclusions: Understanding the methods individuals use to manage pain in a rural setting constitute a stepping‐stone to develop strategies for reducing and preventing misuse and abuse of prescription medications and other drugs in rural American Indian and Alaska Native communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: We investigated whether greater concentrations of on‐ and off‐sale alcohol outlets were associated with crime and whether this association was moderated by COVID‐19 shelter‐in‐place orders (SIP) that restricted on‐premises consumption of alcohol. Methods: Crimes (2019–2020) and addresses of licenced alcohol outlets in a medium‐sized California city were geocoded within census block groups (N = 61). On‐ and off‐sale alcohol outlet density was calculated as licenced outlets/2.59 km2 (1 square mile). Multilevel negative binomial regression analyses were conducted to examine associations between alcohol outlet density and crime, and possible moderating effects of SIP, controlling for block group demographic characteristics and density of other retail businesses. Results: On‐sale outlet density was positively associated with total crimes and Part 2 crimes, while off‐sale outlet density was inversely associated with total crime and Part 2 crimes. Overall, SIP was not significantly associated with crime, but moderated the associations of on‐sale density with total crime and Part 1 crimes such that reductions in crime during SIP were observed in higher density areas. The association of off‐sale outlets with crime was not moderated by SIP policies. Discussion and Conclusion: On‐sale outlet density, but not off‐sale density, appears to be associated with increased crime. The results further indicate that restrictions in hours and service imposed by SIP policies reduced crime in high on‐sale outlet density areas. These findings reinforce the importance of regulating alcohol outlet density and hours of service, especially for on‐sale outlets, as a crime reduction strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]