Alcohol brands shown on popular youth television programs are three times more likely to be consumed by underage drinkers compared to other alcohol brands, providing new and compelling evidence of a strong association between alcohol advertising and youth drinking behavior.
A new study from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Boston University came to this conclusion after examining whether exposure to brand-specific alcohol advertising on 20 popular youth television shows was associated with brand-specific consumption among underage drinkers.
The find was published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and comes on the heels of a study from the same researchers earlier in July which discovered underage drinkers are heavily exposed to magazine ads for the alcohol brands they consume.
“Taken together, these studies strengthen the case for a relationship between brand-specific alcohol advertising among underage youth and brand specific consumption,” said lead author Craig Ross, PhD, MBA, president of Virtual Media Resources in Natick, Massachusetts.
Among youth, alcohol is the number one drug and responsible for 4,300 deaths per year.