Alcohol Consumption Typologies Among Colombian Adults: A Latent Class Analysis of AUDIT Indicators

ABSTACTAlcohol consumption remains a major public health challenge and a leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) is widely used to identify hazardous alcohol use, reliance on total scores may obscure clinically meaningful heterogeneity in drinking behaviors. This study aimed to identify latent alcohol consumption typologies among Colombian adults using AUDIT response patterns and to examine their sociodemographic and psychosocial correlates. Latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted using ten dichotomized AUDIT items from 14,131 adults who reported alcohol consumption during the previous 30 days in the 2019 Colombian National Survey of Psychoactive Substance Use. Competing models were evaluated according to statistical fit, parsimony, classification accuracy, and interpretability. A three-class solution was selected, comprising Low Risk (50.7%), Hazardous Binge Drinking (38.5%), and Harmful/Dependence (10.8%) profiles. Although the two higher-risk classes showed similarly high probabilities of heavy episodic drinking, the Harmful/Dependence profile was characterized by substantially greater probabilities of dependence symptoms and alcohol-related consequences. Early alcohol initiation, peer heavy drinking, and depressive symptoms were associated with more severe profiles, whereas female sex and higher socioeconomic status were protective. These findings highlight the value of person-centered approaches for identifying heterogeneous alcohol use patterns and informing targeted prevention, screening, and intervention strategies.