Alcohol policy in adolescence and subsequent alcohol-attributable hospitalizations and mortality at ages 21-54 years - A register-based cohort study.

Background: Little is known about how alcohol policies experienced in adolescence are associated with later health. We assess whether age of exposure to stricter alcohol policies is associated with later alcohol-attributable hospitalizations and mortality. We take advantage of an alcohol advertising ban and alcohol tax increases introduced in 1975-1977 with relatively stable alcohol policies before and after.

Methods: We used Finnish register data on birth cohorts 1950-1964 (1,175,878 individuals) to assess cohort-wise hazard ratios for the first incidence of alcohol-attributable hospitalization and mortality, and mortality due to external and other causes at ages 21-54 years.

Results: Men who were aged 19 to 25 at the time of the restrictive reform had similar risks for alcohol-attributable hospitalization and mortality to the reference group of those aged 18 - legal drinking age - at the time of reform. For those underage at the time, hospitalization and mortality rates were incrementally smaller cohort by cohort. For example, men who were 17 at the time of the reform had lower hazard ratios of alcohol-attributable hospitalization: 0.91 (95% CI 0.87; 0.95) as did those who were 13 [0.85 (95% CI 0.81; 0.89)]. The findings were similar for external-cause mortality, and similar yet more uncertain for women. In contrast, mortality from other causes declined continuously from cohort to cohort.

Conclusions: Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that stricter alcohol policies in adolescence reduce harmful alcohol consumption patterns extending into adulthood and manifesting as lower alcohol-related harm to health.