Alcohol: children alcohol consumption
The Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS) has been established by the Scottish Executive to provide a broad based approach to the monitoring of substance use among young people in Scotland.
In 2008, SALSUS reported that
- 31% of 15-year-old boys and 31% of 15-year-old girls reported drinking in the past week.
- Among 13 year olds, 11% of boys and 12% of girls reported drinking in the past week.
- Chart 1 shows that the proportion of 13 year olds, reporting drinking alcohol in the past week, more than doubled between 1990 and 2002, from 10% to 23% for both boys and girls. The percentage has declined to 11% for boys and 12% for girls in 2008. Fifteen-year-old boys and girls showed similar increases between 1990 and 2002, from 30% to 47% for boys and from 25 to 46% for girls. The percentage has declined since, to 31% of boys and girls.
- Among pupils who drank alcohol in the previous week, 15-year-old boys reported drinking an average of 21 units of alcohol in the previous week, compared to 15 units consumed by 15-year-old girls. Among 13 year olds who reported drinking alcohol in the last week, boys reported drinking 15 units and girls reported drinking 16 units in the previous week on average.
- In 2008, 16% of 15 year olds and 7% of 13 year olds who had ever drunk alcohol reported having been drunk more than 10 times.
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Of those 13 year olds who consumed alcohol in the last week, 46% had been drunk in the last week, and around a third (32%) had deliberately tried to get drunk.
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64% of fifteen year olds who had consumed alcohol in the last week reported being drunk in the last week and 48% reported that they had deliberately tried to get drunk.
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Twenty six per cent of 13 year olds and 39% of 15 year olds who had ever drunk alcohol reported vomiting as a result of drinking in the last year.
(Source: Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS))
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