Socio-economic factors associated with alcohol use in Uganda: evidence from UDHS 2016/17 data

Abstract

This study was carried out basing on Uganda Demographic and Health Survey data for heads of households 2016. The study aimed at finding out the socio-economic factors associated with alcohol use in Uganda putting emphasis on the relationship between age, sex, religious affiliation, wealth index and education level on the use of alcohol in Uganda and data was analayzed using Stata 14. The study findings indicated that 95.72% of the respondents were males while 4.28 were females, 63.86% of the respondents had acquired primary education, 19.24% had acquired secondary education while only 4.92% had education higher than secondary level, 41.11% of household heads were Catholics, 31.63% were Anglicans and only 10.57% were Muslims, 37.64% of the respondents were aged 25 – 34 years, 31.18% were aged 35 – 44 years, 21.14% were aged above 44 years while only 10.04% were aged below 25 years, 45.38% belonged to the poor class of people, 34.05% belong in the rich class while 20.57% belonged to the middle class of people, 81.61% of the respondents were using alcohol while only 18.39% were using alcohol. The study findings revealed that sex of household head is significantly associated with use of alcohol (p-value = 0.048 which is less than 0.05), wealth index of a household head has no significant association with use of alcohol (p-value = 0.090), education of the household head is significant associated with use of alcohol (p-value = 0.000), religion of the household is significantly associated with use of alcohol (p-value = 0.000) and that age of the household is significantly associated with use of alcohol (p-value = 0.000). The study concluded that education level of the household head, gender, religious affiliation of the household head, age and economic class significantly influences alcohol use in Uganda among heads of households. The study recommended that minimum age for legal alcohol consumption should be raised to 21 years so as to save young children from early childhood drinking and religious leaders should play a big role in condemnation of alcohol use.