Janne Härkönen

Background and Aims: In Finland, per‐capita alcohol consumption increased in the early 2000s and decreased after 2007. Our aim was to determine how these changes originated from changes in drinking practices.Design: Repeated cross‐sectional general‐population surveys.Setting: Finland in 2000, 2008 and 2016.Participants: Finnish residents aged 15–69 years (n = 6703, response rate 59–78%).Measurements: Event‐level data on drinking occasions (n = 21 097). Types of drinking occasions (drinking practices) were identified with latent class analysis using occasion characteristics. The aggregated volume of consumption and intoxication occasions were decomposed into contributions from drinking practice classes and years.Findings: Nine drinking occasion types were identified: three at home without company other than family (51% of occasions in 2016), three socializing occasions in different places and with different company (33%) and three party occasion types (16%). Both the frequency of drinking occasion types and the occasion type‐specific amounts of alcohol consumed contributed to aggregate‐level changes in alcohol use. Drinking at home without external company (with family only; for men, also alone) contributed most to the increase in alcohol use before 2008. Big parties in homes and bars became less common in the 2000s, contributing most to the decline in drinking after 2008.Conclusions: The rise in per‐capita alcohol consumption in Finland in the early 2000s appears to have been linked mainly to an increase in lighter drinking occasions at home without external company. The fall in per‐capita drinking after 2007 was linked mainly to a decrease in big parties in homes and in licensed premises. Changes in drinking frequency and the amounts of alcohol consumed per occasion changed in the same direction as alcohol affordability.

An association between early drinking onset and subsequent heavy drinking has been established, but interpretation is problematic: is the onset of drinking or of intoxication important; is early on...