Teen Drinkers Influenced by Alcohol Advertisements on TV

Alcohol advertisements beamed on television and published in magazines have long been thought to have a negative influence on teenagers and now a joint study conducted by researchers from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Boston University School of Public Health has found that such advertisements were indeed influencing underage drinkers. The researchers conducted their study on a group of around 1,000 people between 13 and 20 years of age, with all of the participants admitting to consuming alcohol over the last 30 days.

The researchers recorded the number of times they were exposed to alcohol advertisements through 20 popular television shows and also recorded the brands of alcohol that they had consumed. They found that underage drinkers were three times more likely to consume the brands of alcohol that were advertised on programs that they had watched.

“The question now becomes what do alcohol advertisers do with this information, given the consequences of alcohol consumption in underage youth. Taken together, these studies strengthen the case for a relationship between brand-specific alcohol advertising among underage youth and brand-specific consumption. As alcohol continues to devastate so many young lives, youth exposure to alcohol advertising should be reduced”, co-author of the study, Michael B. Seigel said.


Source-Medindia