Declining trends in adolescent alcohol consumption and related harms: No room for complacency (an empirical reply to Vieira et al. 2025)

Charlotte R. Pennington; Daniel J. Shaw; Magda Skubera; Abigail K. Rose; Andrew Jones

doi:10.1111/add.70413

Declining trends in adolescent alcohol consumption and related harms: No room for complacency (an empirical reply to Vieira et al. 2025)

Charlotte R. Pennington^*
, Daniel J. Shaw
, Magda Skubera
, Abigail K. Rose
, Andrew Jones

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aston University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Vieira et al. report that alcohol-related harms among adolescents have generally declined in high-income countries where youth drinking has decreased, but several methodological choices complicate this conclusion. By performing reproducibility analyses on Vieira et al.'s raw data, we show that their findings are more nuanced and complex. Secondary data analyses reveal that 19–24-year-olds have elevated vulnerability to alcohol-related harms. Any discussion of declining trends in adolescent alcohol consumption and related harms should acknowledge that current prevalence rates and harms remain unacceptably high and require continued public health attention.

Original language	English
Journal	Addiction
Early online date	30 Mar 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70413
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 30 Mar 2026

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2026 The Author(s). Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Funding

C.R.P. is supported by an Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) Springboard Award (REF: SBF0010\1109); M.S. is supported by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) PhD studentship (REF: ES/Y001877/1).

Funders	Funder number
Academy of Medical Sciences	SBF0010\1109
Economic and Social Research Council	ES/Y001877/1

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

adolescence
alcohol consumption
alcohol-related harm
drinking declines
prevalence
public health
trends

Access to Document

10.1111/add.70413Licence: CC BY 4.0

Addiction - 2026 - Pennington - Declining trends in adolescent alcohol consumption and related harms No room for
Copyright © 2026 The Author(s). Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 639 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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AU - Rose, Abigail K.

AU - Jones, Andrew

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Declining trends in adolescent alcohol consumption and related harms: No room for complacency (an empirical reply to Vieira et al. 2025)

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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