title: Understanding standard drinks and drinking guidelines.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  For consumers to follow drinking guidelines and limit their risk of negative consequences they need to track their ethanol consumption. This paper reviews published research on the ability of consumers to utilise information about the alcohol content of beverages when expressed in different forms, for example in standard drinks or units versus percentage alcohol content.
  
  
  METHODS
  A review of the literature on standard drink definitions and consumer understanding of these, actual drink pouring, use of standard drinks in guidelines and consumer understanding and use of these.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Standard drink definitions vary across countries and typically contain less alcohol than actual drinks. Drinkers have difficulty defining and pouring standard drinks with over-pouring being the norm such that intake volume is typically underestimated. Drinkers have difficulty using percentage alcohol by volume and pour size information in calculating intake but can effectively utilise standard drink labelling to track intake. Standard drink labelling is an effective but little used strategy for enabling drinkers to track their alcohol intake and potentially conform to safe or low-risk drinking guidelines.
authors: Alcohol Research Group, 6475 Christie Avenue, Emeryville, CA 94608, USA. wkerr@arg.org
authors: William C
authors: WC
authors: Kerr
authors: Tim
authors: T
authors: Stockwell
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000453:epidemiology*; D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control; D000434:Alcoholic Beverages / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000431:Ethanol / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000009:adverse effects; D005515:Food Labeling; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D012016:Reference Values
chemical_list: D000431:Ethanol