What Children Know About Alcohol and How They Know it

Summary In an interview study New Zealand children aged 8 and 9 years revealed clear concepts, mostly negative, about alcohol. Most of the children associated drinking alcohol with getting drunk, and few were unable to describe any effects of alcohol or what being drunk meant. Television was a source of information for 37% of the sample, parents or siblings for 26%; 21% had witnessed the effects they described. More than half the sample said they did not know their friends' feelings about alcohol use. When television was a communication source, especially if health promotion advertisements had been seen, drink‐driving dangers were more likely to be described. Children judged aware of alcohol problems in their immediate environment who had witnessed the effects they described mentioned vomiting and silliness as alcohol effects more often than others.