Descriptive Epidemiology of Brand-Specific Alcohol Use Among Underage Youths

Introduction: Although the Institute of Medicine has called for national surveys to measure the brands of alcohol that youths consume, to date there has been no research reporting national data on brand-specific alcohol consumption among youths. Methods: We piloted tested a survey of youth alcohol brand use among a sample of 100 youths ages 16-20 recruited from an existing youth internet panel. The survey was conducted using the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. Initially, participants are chosen scientifically by a random selection of telephone numbers and residential addresses. Persons in selected households are then invited by telephone or by mail to participate in the panel. Using its established internet panel, Knowledge Networks recruited 100 youths and young adults, ages 16-20, via email to participate in the internet-based survey, which measured the use of 368 different brands of alcoholic beverages. Results: This presentation will summarize the descriptive epidemiology of brand-specific alcohol use among underage youths based on the results of what we believe is the first national survey of youth alcohol brand preference. We will present the prevalence of alcoholic beverage use by brand and the market share by volume of each type and brand of alcoholic beverage. Conclusion: It is feasible to measure brand-specific alcohol consumption among underage youths and this can be done using a pre-recruited youth internet panel. National agencies and alcohol researchers should begin to measure alcohol brand use in future studies.