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Researchers Want Liquor Ads Limited

The first national study of liquor advertising and its effects on youth, conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut and Ohio State University, recommends that limiting liquor advertising should be part of a national strategy to reduce underage drinking, the Hartford Courant reports. The study found that young people who see more ads for alcoholic beverages tend to drink more, but alcohol producers have long argued that advertising has no influence on liquor consumption by young people.

Specifically, the analysis shows that for underage drinkers, exposure to one more ad than the average for youth was correlated with a one percent increase in drinking, and that an additional dollar spent per capita on alcohol advertising in a local market was correlated with a three percent increase in underage alcohol consumption as well.

Jeff Becker, president of The Beer Institute said the study fails to establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between advertising and youth drinking.

Researchers identified 24 U.S. media markets and determined how much money the liquor industry spent for TV, radio, newspaper and billboard advertising in each market. Researchers then did random telephone sampling of volunteers aged 15 to 26 within each market.

“We found that if there was more advertising in a market there was more youth drinking,” said Leslie B. Snyder, director of the Center for Health Communication and Marketing at UConn and the study’s lead author. While young people exposed to more advertising were generally more likely to drink, those who remembered the ads drank even more, Snyder said.

David H. Jernigan of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University said the data “calls into question the industry’s argument that its roughly $1.8 billion in measured media expenditures per year have no impact on underage drinking.” Jernigan suggests that alcohol ads could be limited to programs where people younger than 20 make up less than 15 percent of the viewing audience.

Becker said the liquor industry already aims its ads at adult audiences.