The Epidemiology of Alcohol Use Among a Nationally Representative Sample of School-Going Adolescents in Namibia

Alcohol use and drunkenness, along with other risky behaviours, tend to emerge during the adolescent years. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and correlates of alcohol use and lifetime drunkenness among school-going adolescents in Namibia. Using the 2013 Namibia Global School-Based Student Health Survey (GSHS), 3089 adolescents aged 12–17 years (M = 15.1; SD = 1.4) responded to a cross-sectional survey that assessed substance use, psychological distress, and other health risk behaviours. Bivariate and multivariate statistical approaches were used to analyse the data. Overall, 29.8% (95% CI = 28.2–31.4%) of the total analytic sample reported past-month alcohol use, representing 34.1% (95% CI = 31.7–36.6%) among males and 26.4% (95% CI = 24.2–28.5%) among females. Similarly, the prevalence of lifetime drunkenness was 26.0% (95% CI = 24.5–27.5%), representing 33.3% (95% CI = 30.9–35.9%) among males and 20.3% (95% CI = 18.4–22.3%) in females. The final adjusted logistic models indicated that demographic characteristics (age and male gender), mental health variables (anxiety and loneliness), and lifestyle factors (cannabis use, cigarette smoking, and leisure-time sedentary behaviour) showed strong associations with increased odds of past-month alcohol use and lifetime drunkenness. Among the family-level factors, only parental supervision was found to have strong association with reduced odds of both past-month alcohol use and lifetime drunkenness. The multi-level nature of the findings underscores the need for the development of a multi-contextual and multi-sectoral intervention and prevention programmes that could target school-going adolescents who may be at risk of misusing alcohol.