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Abstract
Gender, Alcohol, and Culture: An International Study (GENACIS) is a collaborative study of gender-related and cultural influences on alcohol use and alcohol-related problems of women and men. Members conduct comparative analyses of data from comparable general population surveys in 38 countries on five continents. This paper presents GENACIS findings that (1) age-related declines in drinking are uncommon outside North America and Europe; (2) groups of women at increased risk for hazardous drinking include women who cohabit, women with fewer social roles, more highly educated women in lower-income countries, and sexual minority women in North America; (3) heavier alcohol use shows strong and cross-culturally consistent associations with increased likelihood and severity of intimate partner violence; and (4) one effect or accompaniment of rapid social, economic, and gender-role change in traditional societies may be increased drinking among formerly abstinent women. These findings have potentially important implications for women-focused intervention and policy. Substance abuse services should include attention to middle-aged and older women, who may have different risk factors, symptoms, and treatment issues than their younger counterparts. Creative, targeted prevention is needed for high-risk groups of women. Programs to reduce violence between intimate partners must include attention to the pervasive role of alcohol use in intimate partner aggression. Social and economic empowerment of women, together with social marketing of norms of abstention or low-risk drinking, may help prevent increased hazardous alcohol use among women in countries undergoing rapid social change. Greater attention to effects of gender, culture, and their interactions can inform the design of more effective prevention, intervention, and policy to reduce the substantial global costs of alcohol abuse in both women and men.
Acknowledgments
Gender, Alcohol, and Culture: An International Study (GENACIS) is a collaborative international project affiliated with the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol and coordinated by GENACIS partners from the University of North Dakota (USA), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Alcohol Research Group/Public Health Institute (USA), the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (Canada), the AER Centre for Alcohol Policy Research/Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre (Australia), and the Addiction Info Switzerland Research Institute (Switzerland). Support for aspects of the project comes from the World Health Organization, the Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources Programme of the European Commission (Concerted Action QLG4-CT-2001-0196), the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism/National Institutes of Health (Grants R21 AA012941 and R01 AA015775), the German Federal Ministry of Health, the Pan American Health Organization, and Swiss national funds. Support for individual country surveys was provided by government agencies and other national sources.
Preparation of this article was supported in part by Research Grant No. R01 AA015775 from the US National Institutes of Health National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The content is the sole responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism or the National Institutes of Health. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fourth Meeting and Conference of the Women’s International Group, Hollywood, FL, June 17, 2011.
Disclosure
The author has no conflicts of interests to declare in this research.