title: Peril, chance, adventure: concepts of risk, alcohol use and risky behavior in young adults.
abstract: This paper discusses issues in applying concepts of "risk" to alcohol use. There is a wide variety of definitions of "risk," including dimensions of positive vs. negative aspects of risk-taking, short-term vs. long-term harm, generality vs. specificity of risk behaviors, knowledge of probability of harm, and objective vs. subjective risk. Alcohol can play a role in risky behavior on multiple levels. The paper describes the methods used to examine a link between alcohol and risk-taking (population-based, person-based, event-based and experimental methods) and illustrates these methods from research findings on the association of alcohol to risky driving, crime and violent behavior, and sexual risk-taking. Theoretical models of the association of alcohol and risk-taking are outlined, and the implications of these models for alcohol policy and prevention are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, University of Washington, Seattle 98105, USA.
authors.forename: B C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Leigh
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology; D003415:Crime / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012309:Risk-Taking; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology