Explanations and Implications of Concurrent and Diverging Trends

• Published in: Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
• Main Authors: Rossow, Ingeborg, Mäkelä, Pia, Österberg, Esa
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2007
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1455072507024001s03; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1455072507024001S03

Aims This paper summarizes and discusses the trends in alcohol consumption and various types of alcohol related-harm in the five Nordic countries—Denmark. Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Results and Conclusions The development in alcohol consumption versus alcohol-related harm is mixed. In some cases the trends are fairly parallel whereas in other cases they are diverging. This article lays out the different potential methodological and substantive explanations for the diverging trends. as well as discussing their likely explanatory value. Although we have observed that trends in alcohol consumption are not necessarily followed by similar trends in all indicators of alcohol-related harm, we conclude that there is still in general reason to assume that a significant change in total alcohol consumption in a Nordic country is—all other things being equal—likely to be followed by a change in the same direction in various alcohol-related harms in that population.