Monitoring and Reporting of Alcohol Consumption in India: A Situational Analysis for Combating Underage Drinking

Uniform reporting of health economics data for taxable lifestyle commodities such as alcohol would include sales as well as consumption mapping, which is a challenging task given a component of choice as well as of intensity. This is challenging, particularly for a country such as India, where states are socioculturally diverse and have independent alcohol sales policies, leading to varying levels of its consumption. There is also a gap in the description of risky behaviors of alcohol use, leading possibly to inadequate data collection and a subsequent reporting bias. Furthermore, there is a reported disparity between the overall alcohol sales and the consumption data. This may have a significant impact on the data reporting/projection by global agencies, leading to biased implications for the external perception of health in the Indian context, while also influencing the related trade and taxation parameters. To depict the need for consumption mapping and digital interventions in this context, an example of underage drinking in India through a Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats analysis was undertaken. Overall, adopting digital interventions, including mobility mapping for consumption and geospatial mapping of sales hot spots, may facilitate better data collection, a possible solution for bridging the information gap between sales and consumption.