The Health Survey for England (HSE) has put out a call for people to take part in an online survey on the questions asked in its drinking module.
The HSE currently has two large modules of questions around alcohol to determine:
- the usual amount drunk on a single day and the type and frequency of regular drinking in the last 12-months (used to calculate Average Weekly Consumption)
- the maximum amount of alcohol consumed on any day in the previous week (Heaviest Drinking Day).
Changes have been proposed following a review of government survey questions relating to alcohol consumption undertaken by the English Health Statistics Steering Group (EHSSG) alcohol theme group.
The review concludes that there is a need to:
- update the current alcohol product list that questions ask about
- review current alcohol unit conversion factors
- consider whether new questions are needed to reflect current policy
Please note that due to participation burden the overall length of the survey cannot be increased, therefore any requirement for new questions would need some existing questions to be dropped.
HSE are therefore asking users for input on the following areas:
- updating the alcohol product list used in HSE
- reviewing the alcohol unit conversion factors used in HSE
- considering the usefulness of questions on heaviest drinking day (HDD)
- introducing new questions to identify alcohol dependence (AUDIT)
- adding new questions to capture special occasion drinking
The survey should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete. This is a public consultation and anonymised results will be released approximately eight weeks after it closes.
Please note responses will only be accepted via the online survey.