In recent times, developing countries such as Grenada have
experienced a shift in disease burden from infectious to
chronic and social disorders. This is in part due to the
growing prevalence of risky behaviors including but not
limited to alcohol use among adolescents. Adolescent
drinking has several detrimental effects on a society, and
therefore must be better understood in order to create
effective prevention programs. Thus, the aims of this study
are to first measure the overall prevalence of alcohol use,
drunkenness, problem drinking, and poor perception of
alcohol’s negative health effects among Grenadian
adolescents and secondly, determine the strength of
association to alcohol advertising viewership. In total, the
Global School-Based Student Survey (GSHS) administered
by the World Health Organization in 2008 was completed
by 1,542 secondary students between the ages of 11 and 16.
Our analyses determined that 46.5% of adolescents were
currently using alcohol with males having a greater
prevalence than females (52.2% vs 41.8%). Additionally,
statistical analyses indicated a correlation between current
alcohol use and advertising viewership of t = 0.110
(p < 0.01) for males and t = 0.186 (p < 0.01) for females.
The findings indicate that even though alcohol use and
associated variables are highly prevalent among secondary
students in Grenada, exposure to alcoholic beverage
advertisements only plays a minor role in this trend.