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Ulf Gerdtham. Photo.

Ulf Gerdtham

Professor

Ulf Gerdtham. Photo.

A measure of alcohol affordability for Sweden : Capturing trends among different demographic groups

Author

  • V. Müller
  • J. Jarl
  • Ulf-Göran Gerdtham

Summary, in English

The World Health Organization has rated alcohol abuse as one of the leading risk factors for population health worldwide and emphasises the relevance of alcohol affordability (AA) measures as important instruments to monitor alcohol control policy. The present study suggests an AA index that is suitable for measuring AA in Sweden, where off-premises alcohol is exclusively distributed by Systembolaget, the government-owned chain of liquor stores. Sweden provides uniform off-premises prices for alcohol and extensive register data, which profits the accuracy of this index. By allowing for AA comparisons across types of alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, spirits) and price categories, as well as across population groups (age, sex and family composition), and by being transferable to other Nordic countries with uniform off-premises prices, this study will facilitate governmental monitoring and supervision of the alcohol policy in Nordic countries. The suggested AA index is defined as the ratio of the median equivalised disposable income and the price per litre of 100% ethanol for alcohol, scaled to equal 100% in the base year. The income can be measured for the reviewed population or a subgroup, and the price measure can include all sold alcoholic beverages or separate them by beverage type and/or price category. Thereby, the index measures the number of litres of 100% ethanol that are affordable with the median income. Applying the index to the publicly available data for 2011–2019 from Statistics Sweden and Systembolaget reveals that alcohol in Sweden generally became more affordable, with high-priced alcoholic beverages becoming comparably more affordable than low-priced alcohol. However, low-priced beer became less affordable over the last decade. Future studies may validate the AA index against alcohol consumption.

Department/s

  • Health Economics
  • LU Profile Area: Proactive Ageing
  • Centre for Economic Demography
  • Department of Economics
  • EpiHealth: Epidemiology for Health

Publishing year

2023

Language

English

Pages

250-269

Publication/Series

NAD Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs

Volume

40

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy

Keywords

  • alcohol affordability index
  • low-priced alcohol
  • review
  • subgroup analysis

Status

Published

Research group

  • Health Economics

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1455-0725