Stakeholder definitions of responsible drinking: a call to define an ambiguous construct

Abstract To mitigate alcohol-related harm, various stakeholders have advanced the construct of ‘responsible drinking.’ However, clarity regarding ‘responsible drinking’ in evaluation research is limited. Additionally, the alcohol industry often uses the term without any mention of clear limits or meaning. At this point it is unclear whether stakeholders are adopting a shared understanding of the ‘responsible drinking’ concept; such a shared understanding is essential for the development, implementation, and evaluation of consumer protection strategies that rest on individual responsibility. Therefore, we sought to describe 6 stakeholders’ use of the construct. Stakeholder sectors included (1) academics, (2) government organizations, (3) alcohol industry, (4) alcohol treatment centers, (5) U.S. higher education institutions, and (6) addiction professionals’ organizations. We searched a total of 133 sources representing these stakeholder sectors. Despite frequent use of the term ‘responsible drinking’ or a close derivative, only 17 sources provided an explicit definition. Coding revealed that the ‘responsible drinking’ message is still ambiguous, which means that consumers are not being provided clear harm avoidance guidance. Future research should create a shared conceptualization of responsible drinking to include all dimensions relevant to the construct. Furthermore, alternative phrases such as ‘safe drinking’ or ‘moderate drinking’ may be used to emphasize different dimensions of responsible drinking and may warrant further study. Like responsible drinking, other terms will require careful development, as well, but might benefit in terms of acceptability and reception from the absence of a positive connotation.