Risk perception and correlates of alcohol use among out-of-school youth in motor parks in Lagos State, Nigeria - Malawi Medical Journal, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2016, pp. 19-25

Canada, United States, and European countries legalized Alcohol and the trade of alcohol with globalization has resulted in an mass alcohol driven economy. In most developed countries, there are measures in place to ensure that children or teenagers do not consume alcohol due to its risk on their health.  In Canada, the legal age to drink is 19. This is the age at which adolescent are usually in their first year of university, college, or in grade 13. In schools we are taught about alcohol tolerance, and how one should not consume more alcohol than their body can take, or one should not drink alone. There are a lot of health measures in place to ensure people don’t die or have alcohol intoxication. Even with these measures in place, some teenagers push their boundaries and engage in risky behaviours. Now imagine, if these teenagers were not in school and there were no measures placed by the government to ensure that teenagers cannot access alcohol. What will happen?

The study aims to analyze the risks, patterns of use, and the correlation of alcohol with the youth who are out of school, in Motor parks, Lago’s State Nigeria. Since the youth are out of school, they are more vulnerable to miss out an opportunity of learning healthy behaviours regarding the consumption of alcohol.

A cross-sectional study based on interviews was conducted with 380 youth who were out of school.  Results state that the level of alcohol prevalence was 61.1 % and 55.5 % of these youth were current drinkers.  More than half of the current drinkers have a drinking problem and three-quarters of them had experienced at least one episode of alcohol intoxication in the past month. Even though 63.5 % of them wanted to reduce alcohol intake, only 28.9 % received help in reducing drinking.

This study concludes that their needs be a program in place to help youth reduce alcohol intake. As suggested 63.5 % of the youth wanted to reduce their alcohol intake, however, they do not have proper infrastructure or support to reduce their alcohol intake. Thus, their attempts always lead to failure. With the proper help and support, youth can come out of alcoholism.