Alcoholic beverage purchase by Brazilian adolescents: individual and contextual factors associated in a multilevel...

To analyze the individual and contextual factors associated with the purchase of alcoholic beverages by adolescents in Brazil.

A cross-sectional study with data from the National Adolescent Health Survey (2015). The study sample consisted of 21,125 adolescents who reported having consumed alcohol in the 30 days before the survey. Bivariate and multivariate analysis was performed by calculating the Prevalence Ratios in a multilevel Poisson Regression (95%CI) to verify the effect of individual variables, school context, and Brazilian federation units on the outcome.

17.54% (95%CI 17.03-18.06) bought the alcoholic beverage for their consumption. The outcome was associated with male gender (PR 1.69; 95%CI 1.56-1.83), the age group from 15 to 17 years old (PR 1.52 95%CI 1.41-1.65), who ingested alcohol more than six times in 30 days (PR 1.47; 95%CI 1.37-1.61), who work (PR 1.26 95%CI 1.16-1.37), who are children of women with low education, who study in public schools (RP 1.16 95%CI 1.04-1.30), who missed classes (RP 1.14 95%CI 1.05-1.23) and who do not have a follow-up responsible in their free time (PR 1.13 95%CI 1.04-1.21) and who live in states with higher illiteracy rates of people aged 25 years old and over (PR=1.19; 95%CI 1, 02-1.39).

The adolescents' access to alcohol purchase was associated with individual factors, the school context, and the federation unit. These findings indicate the importance of strengthening health promotion aimed at vulnerable youth people.