Assessing alcohol consumption in a Chinese urban population and a university town using high temporal resolution...

Alcohol consumption is a leading preventable risk factor for morbidity and mortality in China. Understanding drinking patterns provides important data to inform public health policies in alcohol control, especially in specific groups like university students. This study aims to assess the alcohol consumption patterns and level of use in an urban population and a university town in a Chinese city using wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE).

Daily wastewater sample was collected from an urban catchment (n = 270) and every Wednesday's sample from a university town of 10 university campus (n = 43) in 2017-2018. Concentration of alcohol consumption biomarker in wastewater, ethyl sulfate, was measured by direct injection LC-MS/MS analysis. Per capita daily alcohol consumption was then back calculated for assessment purposes.

Per capita daily alcohol consumption was 1.4 ± 0.6 mL/ person aged 15 + /day (EPD) (range: 0.2-4.9) in the urban catchment and 1.3 ± 0.6 EPD (range: 0.3-2.6) in the university town. Trends of alcohol consumption were stable in both catchments in 2017-2018. Alcohol consumption on weekends (1.5 EPD) and weekdays (1.4 EPD) were at a similar level. Additionally, no difference was observed between holidays (1.5 EPD) and non-holidays (1.4 EPD).

There is a stable weekly drinking level in the studied urban population, which is different compared to studies conducted in Western countries. Our study suggested a similar consumption level between the urban population and university students. Drinking during weekdays could negatively affect China's economic productivity and future public health policies could be adapted to reflect this pattern of drinking.