The total alcohol per capita consumption (total APC) comprises both the recorded and the unrecorded APC, which together provide a more accurate estimate of the level of alcohol consumption in a country, and as a result, portray trends of alcohol consumption in a more precise way.
Definition:
Total alcohol per capita consumption (APC) is defined as the total (sum of recorded and unrecorded alcohol) amount of alcohol consumed per person (15years of age or older) over a calendar year, in litres of pure alcohol, adjusted for tourist consumption. The estimates for the total alcohol consumption are produced by summing up the 3-year average per capita (15+) recorded alcohol consumption and an estimate of per capita (15+) unrecorded alcohol consumption for a calendar year. Tourist consumption takes into account tourists visiting the country and inhabitants visiting other countries.
Method of measurement
Recorded alcohol consumption refers to alcohol consumed according to the official statistics at country level based on production, import, export, and sales or taxation data. When government national statistics are not available, country-specific alcohol industry statistics in the public domain based on interviews or fieldwork are used; otherwise, data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' statistical database (FAOSTAT) are used, or data from alcohol industry statistics in the public domain based on desk review.
Unrecorded alcohol consumption refers to alcohol which is not taxed and is outside the usual system of governmental control, such as home or informally produced alcohol (legal or illegal), smuggled alcohol, surrogate alcohol (which is alcohol not intended for human consumption), or alcohol obtained through cross-border shopping (which is recorded in a different jurisdiction). When nationally representative empirical data (which are often general population surveys in countries where alcohol is legal) are not available, specific other empirical investigations, or expert opinion supported by periodic surveys of experts at country level using modified Delphi-technique, are used.
The litres of alcohol consumed by tourists (15 years of age or older) in a country are based on the number of tourists who visited a country, the average amount of time they spent in the country, and how much these people drink on average in their countries of origin (estimated based on per capita consumption of recorded and unrecorded alcohol). Furthermore, tourist alcohol consumption also accounts for the inhabitants of a country consuming alcohol while visiting other countries (based on the average time spent outside of their country (for all people 15 years or older) and the amount of alcohol consumed in their country of origin). These estimations assumes the following: (1) that people drink the same amounts of alcohol when they are tourists as they do in their home countries, and (2) that global tourist consumption is equal to 0 (and thus tourist consumption can be either net negative or positive).Tourist consumption is based on UN statistics, and data are provided by IHME.
Method of estimation:
The total APC in 2016 was calculated from a three-year average of recorded (for 2015, 2016, and 2017) per capita consumption and applying unrecorded proportion (for 2016) and tourist consumption (for 2016).
For recorded alcohol consumption, if data did not already exist for 2015, 2016 and/or 2017, the relevant years were projected using a linear regression model employing recorded alcohol per capita consumption data since 2012.
Unrecorded alcohol consumption was estimated as a percentage of total alcohol consumption. Country-level proportions of unrecorded alcohol consumption were estimated using a regression analysis. Fractional response random intercepts regression models which accounted for clustering of data points within countries were used to estimate what percentage of total alcohol consumption was due to unrecorded alcohol consumption. Univariate models were fitted for alcohol consumption statistics (the prevalence of drinking, recorded litres of alcohol consumed per capita per year, patterns of drinking scores, value added and excise taxation of alcoholic beverages, presence of a written national alcohol policy, presence of national legislation to prevent illegal production and/or the sale of home or informally produced alcoholic beverages, and alcohol prohibition measures) and other predictors (urbanization, migration rates, malnutrition, sanitation, education levels, and per capita gross domestic product adjusted for purchasing power parity). Backward and forward selection (using a significance cut-off level of 0.2) was used in combination with out-of-sample predictions (multiple random 10% sub-samples) and plausibility checks to assess model fit. Covariate data for 2016 were obtained from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the World Bank.
Tourist consumption of alcohol are the litres of pure alcohol which are purchased and consumed by tourists to a country. This figure is adjusted for the alcohol purchased and consumed when people are visiting countries other than their home country. Positive figures denote total alcohol consumption of outbound tourists being greater than total alcohol consumption by inbound tourists, negative numbers the opposite.
Unit of Measure:
Litres of pure alcohol per person (15 years or older) per year
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