Alcohol and adolescents. Knowledge, attitudes, and behavior.

Students (n = 3017) from the 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grades in six school districts throughout Georgia and South Carolina completed a questionnaire to determine their knowledge, attitudes, and behavior regarding alcohol use. Results suggest that knowledge, attitudes, and behavior are significantly correlated. Two distinct attitudes were discovered: acceptable use of alcohol and unacceptable uses of alcohol, and these interacted with knowledge and behavior in different ways. Students who reported school as their major source of information about alcohol were more knowledgeable and had the most conservative attitudes toward unacceptable use of alcohol (p less than 0.001). White students scored higher on the knowledge test and had more liberal attitudes than minority students (p less than 0.001). Females were more conservative than males (p 0.001), and older students had more liberal attitudes (p less than 0.001). Our results suggest that efforts to educate youth about alcohol should incorporate acceptable uses as well as the negative aspects of drinking.