High alcohol content malt beverages and related products appear to be targeted at lower income minority communities. . Low-income minority communities are more likely to have alcohol outlets that sell higher alcohol content malt beverages (such as, convenience stores and liquor stores) as opposed to other alcohol outlets (such as bars and restaurants) that typically do not sell higher alcohol content malt beverages. Taken together, these facts provide support for the widespread belief that malt beverages are disproportionately consumed by low-income minority groups. At the same time, malt beverages represent a small niche in the overall market of alcoholic beverages. As such, national surveys and even community samples have often overlooked the intricacies required to accurately collected information on malt beverages. Issues such as larger container sizes, higher alcohol content than regular beers, and conflation of beer with malt beverages have not been routinely accounted for in national datasets. Therefore, accurate information on the ethanol consumed, socio-demographic characteristics of malt beverage consumers, and adverse consequences or drinking malt beverage products are poorly understood. A three-phased exploratory study is proposed. In the first phase, questionnaire items related to measuring beverage preference, brand name, and container size will be piloted tested for purposes of developing a brief self-administered questionnaire (n=60). In the second phase, a community sample of alcohol drinkers (n=750) will be recruited from randomly selected off-premise alcohol outlets in South Central Los Angeles. Respondents will be randomly selected at alcohol outlets, and asked to complete a 15-minute self- administered questionnaire. In the third phase, three-month follow-up data will be collected from 100 randomly selected baseline respondents to test techniques for re-capturing baseline respondents and to assess temporal variations in beverage preference and adverse consequences.
The specific aims of the proposal are as follows: (1) To develop brief, accurate questionnaire items for assessing beverage type, brand name, and container size; (2) To determine factors associated with high alcohol content malt beverage and related products consumption among a community sample recruited from off-premise alcohol outlets in a multiracial and multiethnic low-income sample neighborhood in Los Angeles; and (3) To conduct a pilot test of a method for re-capturing study participants at 3-months and to assess temporal variations in beverage preference and adverse consequences.
| Vilamovska, Anna-Marie; Brown Taylor, Didra; Bluthenthal, Ricky N (2009) Adverse drinking-related consequences among lower income, racial, and ethnic minority drinkers: cross-sectional results. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 33:645-53 |
| French, Michael Thomas; Browntaylor, Didra; Bluthenthal, Ricky Neville (2006) Price elasticity of demand for malt liquor beer: findings from a US pilot study. Soc Sci Med 62:2101-11 |
| Bluthenthal, Ricky N; Browntaylor, Didra; Guzman-Becerra, Norma et al. (2005) Characteristics of malt liquor beer drinkers in a low-income, racial minority community sample. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 29:402-9 |
