Concern about family members' drinking and cultural consistency: A Multi-Country GENACIS Study

The data analysed come from the GENACIS project (Gender, Alcohol and Culture: an International Study) and involve population surveys for 18 countries (total N = 34,916) from five WHO Regions: African (Nigeria and Uganda); Americas (Argentina, Costa Rica, Uruguay and United States); European (Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Spain, Sweden, and UK); South-East Asian (India, Sri Lanka); and Western Pacific (Japan). The paper studies gender and country differences in the relationship between social pressure to drink less experienced by individuals, considering seeking help for alcohol problems, and alcohol consumption and problem levels (AUDIT). In most countries for both men and women, informal control was applied most often by the spouse or partner, while reporting such controls from any source seemed more common in low- and middle-income countries. In all countries studied, men reported substantially more social control efforts than women. The hypothesis was not maintained that drinking control and help seeking was more common for heavier drinkers and those with more drinking-related harms. However, there appeared to be a relationship between a country's aggregate level of drinking and the extent to which social control efforts were reported. Higher correlations between drinking and problem levels on the one hand, and spouses' and other family members' concerns on the other, may be suggestive of a cultural consistency in societal responses to drinking and alcohol-related problems.