title: Estimation of usual occasion-based individual drinking patterns using diary survey data.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In order to successfully address excessive alcohol consumption it is essential to have a means of measuring the drinking patterns of a nation. Owing to the multi-dimensional nature of drinking patterns, usual survey methods have their limitations. The aim of this study was to make use of extremely detailed diary survey data to demonstrate a method of combining different survey measures of drinking in order to reduce these limitations.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data for 1724 respondents of the 2000/01 National Diet and Nutrition Survey was used to obtain a drinking occasion dataset, by plotting the respondent's blood alcohol content over time. Drinking frequency, level and variation measures were chosen to characterise drinking behaviour and usual behaviour was estimated via statistical methods.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Complex patterns in drinking behaviour were observed amongst population subgroups using the chosen consumption measures. The predicted drinking distribution combines diary data equivalent coverage with a more accurate proportion of non-drinkers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This statistical analysis provides a means of obtaining average consumption measures from diary data and thus reducing the main limitation of this type of data for many applications. We hope that this will facilitate the use of such data in a wide range of applications such as risk modelling, especially for acute harms, and burden of disease studies.
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 30 Regent Street, S1 4DA, UK. Electronic address: d.hill-mcmanus@sheffield.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hill-McManus
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 30 Regent Street, S1 4DA, UK. Electronic address: c.r.angus@sheffield.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Angus
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 30 Regent Street, S1 4DA, UK. Electronic address: y.meng@sheffield.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 30 Regent Street, S1 4DA, UK. Electronic address: john.holmes@sheffield.ac.uk.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Holmes
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 30 Regent Street, S1 4DA, UK. Electronic address: a.brennan@sheffield.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brennan
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 30 Regent Street, S1 4DA, UK. Electronic address: p.meier@sheffield.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sylvia Meier
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Binge drinking; Blood alcohol content; Diary data; Drinking occasion; Drinking patterns; Survey measures