Sociodemographic and individual predictors of alcohol policy attitudes: Results from a US probability sample

Objective: Public views on alcohol policies have facilitated legislative ch ange. Given limited resources, however, policy makers and prevention advoca tes cannot make haphazard attempts to mobilize public resources. This inves tigation reports sociodemographic and individual traits predicting attitude s on alcohol policies designed to reduce underage alcohol consumption. Prev ious studies have examined single-item measures of alcohol policy. We exami ned predictors of multi-item scales measuring five core dimensions of alcoh ol policy. Methods: A survey of public attitudes on alcohol policies was administered to a US national probability sample of 7021 adults. Results: Women, infrequent drinkers, and adults with greater knowledge abou t: or concern for youth exhibited the greatest support across five alcohol policy scales. Older adults favored policies that restrict alcohol use in p ublic places, whereas younger adults favored an increase in alcohol taxes t o address underage alcohol use. Conclusions: Individual factors such as alcohol use frequency and concern f or youth explained larger proportions of variance in alcohol policy attitud es than did sociodemographic factors. Consistent with previous research, po litical orientation, parental status, employment status, and marital status did not predict attitudes on alcohol policy.