Definition: share of the population aged 15 and over reporting daily drinking of alcohol. The data comes from the National Health Surveys carried out by the Scientific Institute of Public Health/Sciensano. Eurostat data are used for international comparisons. As these indicators are based on surveys, a margin of uncertainty should be taken into account. This margin of uncertainty increases as the indicator is calculated on smaller sub-populations. The Sciensano website presents the data with confidence intervals and for European data, they are available from Eurostat upon request.

Goal: the proportion of the population aged 15 and over reporting daily alcohol consumption must fall by at least 20%, from 12.9% in 2010 to maximum 10.3% in 2030.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include target 3.5: “Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol”.

The Interfederal Strategy on Harmful Alcohol Use 2023-2028, adopted in Belgium in 2023, aims to reduce harmful alcohol consumption, particularly among young people. The strategy is backed up by the 2023-2025 action plan (Cellule Générale des Politiques de Drogues, 2023).

The Global Strategy to Reduce Harmful Use of Alcohol, adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in May 2010, also aims to reduce harmful alcohol consumption (WHO, 2010). This strategy was followed in 2024 by a Global Alcohol Action Plan 2022-2030 (WHO, 2024). The plan states that a relative reduction of at least 20% (compared with 2010) in the harmful use of alcohol should be achieved by 2030. As there is no indicator of this harmful use of alcohol, the indicator of daily alcohol consumption (whatever the level of consumption) is used here as an approximation to measure this use.

Based on the target set in the Global Alcohol Action Plan 2022-2030, and assuming constant changes between 2008 and 2013 data, it is possible to determine a specific target for Belgium. This calculation shows that the daily alcohol consumption should be maximum 10.3% by 2030.

International comparison: over the period 2014-2019, daily alcohol consumption is on average higher in Belgium (9.7% in 2019) than in the EU27 (8.4% in 2019). Over this period, however, the decrease in the indicator was stronger in Belgium than in the EU27. When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with the poorest performance in 2019. In that year, Lithuania ranked first with 0.8% and Portugal last with 20.7%.

UN indicator: the indicator chosen is linked to indicator 3.5.2 - Alcohol consumption (in litres of pure alcohol) per capita (aged 15 and over) over a calendar year, since it measures the proportion of the population aged 15 and over reporting daily consumption of alcohol.

Sources

• General

  • SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: United Nations (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, document A/RES/70/1.

  • Indicators: United Nations (2017), Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, document A/RES/71/313.

  • UN Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

  • UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators website: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

• Specific

  • Cellule Générale des Politiques de Drogues (2023), Stratégie interfédérale en matière d’usage nocif d’alcool 2023-2028 – Plan d’action 2023-2025, https://organesdeconcertation.sante.belgique.be/sites/default/files/documents/20230329_imcvg_tvd_cimsp_rtd_1_plan_alcool_-_annexe_2.pdf (consulted on 07/10/2024).

  • WHO (2010), Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/wha63-13-global-strategy-to-reduce-the-harmful-use-of-alcohol (consulted on 07/10/2024).

  • WHO (2024), Global alcohol action plan 2022-2030, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240090101 (consulted on 07/10/2024).

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