Alcohol measures

Alcohol consumption was measured by estimating several variables in the alcohol module. People who abstained from alcohol were identified based on the results of the question "During the past 12 months, have you had a drink of beer, wine, liquor or any other alcoholic beverage?" For exceeding low-risk drinking guidelines, respondents were asked "On the days you drank in the past 12 months, about how many drinks did you have per day?" The answers were used to construct a 7-day diary of alcohol consumption to identify respondents who exceeded low-risk drinking guidelines (15 and 10 drinks per week, or 4 and 3 per day, for men and women, respectively).²³ Finally, binge drinking was assessed with the question "How often in the past 12 months have you had 5 or more drinks on one occasion?" and was defined as consumption of 5 or more drinks at least once a month in the past year, the usual definition of binge drinking used in Statistics Canada surveys.

Although data are available for individuals 12-17 years old, the data presented here are for people aged 18 years and older from across Canada. This is the legal age for drinking in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. In some sensitivity analyses, other age cut-offs and selected provinces were employed.

The CADUMS survey uses its own definitions of at-risk drinking and does not report binge drinking using the 5-drink measure. We used the original data from the public use files to estimate the prevalence of binge drinking in 2008 and 2012.