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Toxicology
Teen drinking falls, alcohol ambulance call-outs don't
Do trends in alcohol harm mirror consumption? An analysis of adolescent ambulance attendances
Journal of Public Health · 2026-10-28 · Added 30 October 2026
An Australian study of the National Ambulance Surveillance System tracked 25,928 adolescent alcohol-intoxication ambulance attendances in Victoria from 2012 to 2023 and found rates stayed largely flat despite falling teen drinking, with a small decline only among males in major cities.
- Study type
- Registry
- Design
- Retrospective registry analysis with multivariable regression, stratified by gender and remoteness
- Participants
- 25,928 ambulance attendances for adolescent alcohol intoxication (ages 10–19), Victoria 2012–2023
- Main finding
- A small but significant monthly decline occurred only among males in major cities (B = −0.01, P < .001); no significant trends for males in regional areas or for females in metropolitan or regional areas
- Caveat
- Attendance data capture acute harm presentations rather than drinking behaviour, and the data are Victorian only
- Bottom line
- Context only
Why it matters in Australia (High relevance). Australian ambulance data on a Friday-night workload that lands on crews everywhere — the gap between survey-reported drinking and actual ambulance harm matters for prevention planning in any state.
Learning goal
Recognise how adolescent alcohol harm persists across gender and remoteness despite falling teen drinking.
More
- Topic: Toxicology
- Daily scan: 30 October 2026
- Podcast: Paramedic Papers Daily, 30 October 2026
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