Drinkaware says unit guidelines just aren't working
New research, conducted by Ipsos for alcohol education charity Drinkaware, suggests that just over two thirds of 25-65 year olds don’t recognise how many units they can drink if they want to stay inside the lower risk guidelines.
The new research revealed that only 32% of 25 – 65 year olds knew the correct unit guideline limit for women and 31% knew for men (as shown in Table 1).
It also showed that amongst a range of alcoholic drinks, knowledge of the correct unit limit varied from 13% (for a pint of 5% ABV cider) to 36% (for a pint of 4% ABV lager), as outlined in Table 2.
The government’s lower risk guidelines set by the Chief Medical Officer advises that women should not regularly drink more than 2-3 units daily (equivalent to a 175ml glass of 13% wine) and that men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 units daily (equivalent to a pint and a half of 4% beer). ‘Regularly’ means drinking every day or most days of the week.
Technical Note:
• Ipsos conducted an online survey among a representative sample of 1,539 adults aged 25-65 across the UK between 19th November – 12th December 2013. • The data were weighted by age, gender, region and social grade to the known offline population profiles. • An asterisk (*) denotes a finding of less than 0.5%, but greater than zero. • Where results do not sum to 100 this may be due to multiple responses or computer rounding.
