European longitudinal study on the relationship between adolescents’ alcohol marketing exposure and alcohol use

• DOI: 10.1111/add.13455
• Publication Date: 2016-08-02T23:18:09Z
• Authors: Avalon de Bruijn; Jacqueline Tanghe; Rebecca de Leeuw; Rutger Engels; Peter Anderson; Franca Beccaria; Michał Bujalski; Corrado Celata; Jordy Gosselt; Dirk Schreckenberg; Luiza Słodownik; Jördis Wothge; Wim van Dalen
• Keywords: Binge drinking; Alcohol advertising

Background and aims This is the first study to examine effect of alcohol marketing exposure on adolescents' drinking in a cross-national context. The aim was reciprocal processes between wide range types adolescent drinking, controlled for non-alcohol branded media exposure. Design Prospective observational (11–12- 14–17-month intervals), using three-wave autoregressive cross-lagged model. Setting School-based sample 181 state-funded schools Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland. Participants A total 9075 eligible respondents participated survey (mean age 14 years, 49.5% male. Measurements Adolescents reported their frequency past-month binge drinking. Alcohol measured by latent variable with 13 items measuring online marketing, televised advertising, sport sponsorship, music event/festival ownership alcohol-branded promotional items, reception free samples price offers. Confounders were age, gender, education, country, internet use, sponsored football championships television programmes without commercials. Findings analyses showed one-directional long-term effects (exposure T1 T2: β = 0.420 (0.058), P < 0.001, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.324–0.515; T2 T3: 0.200 (0.044), CI 0.127–0.272; exposure: > 0.05). Similar results found model 0.409 (0.054), 0.320–0.499; 0.168 (0.050), 0.086–0.250; Conclusions There appears be one-way use over time, which cannot explained either previous or non-alcohol-branded marketing.