Distribution of Alcohol Consumption and Expenditures and the Impact of Improved Measurement on Coverage of Alcohol Sales in the 2000 National Alcohol Survey Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 31 (10), 1714–1722.
To validate improved survey estimates of alcohol volume and new expenditures questions, these measures were aggregated and evaluated through comparison to sales data.
Using the new measures, we examined their distributions by estimating the proportion of mean intake, heavy drinking days, and alcohol expenditures among drinkers grouped by volume.
The distributions of mean alcohol intake and heavy drinking days are highly concentrated in the U.S. population. Lower expenditures per drink by the heaviest drinkers suggest substantial downward quality substitution, drinking in cheaper contexts or other bargain pricing strategies.
Empirical drink ethanol estimates improved survey coverage of sales particularly for spirits, but significant under-coverage remains, highlighting need for further self-report measurement improvement.
Reprint Request E-Mail: wkerr@arg.org
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