The association between alcohol consumption and self-rated health among adult Norwegian women. A cross-sectional study from the Norwegian Women and Cancer (NOWAC) cohort

Abstract

Abstract Background: After 1985, the proportion of women who drink alcohol in Norway has increased, narrowing the gender gap in alcohol consumption. In Norway, more women now drink alcohol than before. There is little evidence of an association between alcohol consumption and self-rated health (SRH) in Norwegian women. Therefore, this study aimed at the association between alcohol consumption and SRH in Norwegian women aged 30 to 70 years. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of 172, 472 Norwegian women aged 30 to 70 years, using data from the Norwegian Women and Cancer (NOWAC) cohort. This study only focused on wave 1 from 1991 to 2008. We used multinomial logistic regression to analyze the association between alcohol consumption and SRH. In addition, we adjusted the analysis separately for age and then for multivariable (age, educational status, cigarette smoking, BMI, physical activity). We further stratified the adjusted models based on educational status. Results: This study found that alcohol nonconsumption was positively associated with poor health, with an odds ratio of 1.64 and a 95% confidence interval of 1.56 to 1.73. High alcohol consumption was positively associated with excellent health with an odds ratio of 1.21 and a 95% confidence interval of 1.16 to 1.26. The positive association between alcohol nondrinking and poor health by educational status was stronger among women with higher levels of education. Conclusion: Women who drank high amounts of alcohol were positively associated with good SRH, and women who did not drink alcohol were positively associated with poor SRH. Because this study was cross-sectional, it is not possible to determine the direction of the association. Therefore, future prospective longitudinal studies are needed to investigate causality. Keywords: Self-rated health, Alcohol, Alcohol consumption