Prevalence and Correlates of Alcohol Consumption among Hill-Tribe Adolescents below the Legal Drinking Age-A Community-based Cross-Sectional Study in Northern Thailand.

Alcohol drinking has been prevalent among various hill tribes of northern Thailand due to their distinctively different lifestyles, traditions, cultures and beliefs than the general Thai population; the majority of these traditions involve annual rounds of customary rituals that make alcohol abundantly accessible to all age groups. To study the prevalence and predictors of alcohol use, a community-based analytical cross-sectional study was conducted between October 2017-September 2018 among 480 sampled adolescents aged 12 through 18 years drawn by stratified random sampling. A proprietary questionnaire developed by the researchers was used to collect the data which were analyzed using binary logistic regression. The prevalence of alcohol use in the previous 30 days was 46.7%. Drinking predictors were: having at least a drinking parent, drinking peers, ever been sent to buy alcohol, smoking, cordial relationship with peers, gambling, family violence experience, stress and leisure time company. Therefore, our results suggest that prevention interventions should be designed with a focus on discouraging parents from sending children to buy alcohol and drinking or smoking in their presence; to reduce both social and commercial access to alcohol, age limits should be imposed on alcohol intake at all ceremonious events, while strictly reinforcing the law that prohibits selling alcohol to minors.

Access to services and complications experienced by disabled people in Thailand.

The number of people with disabilities who have experienced complications such as bedsores or joint problems in Thailand is increasing. This has an impact on the health system and on the community. This paper aimed to study the accessibility of the health system to disabled people and the complications experienced by them. A cross-sectional survey using multistage random sampling to select a sample of 406 people with physical disability in the north of Thailand. Data were collected using questionnaires administered by health professionals. More than half of the sample had access to all health care services (55.4%). The most accessible services were health promotion (94.3%) and physical rehabilitation (66.7%). Continuing physical rehabilitation services were available to 45.8%. More than half of those surveyed had complications (59.9%). The most common complication experienced was fixed-joints (25.1%). These complications were related to the availability of continuing physical rehabilitation services (P = .01). Most disabled people were dependent on the state welfare system. Less than half had access to continuing of physical rehabilitation services, and more than half had complications. Early access to physical rehabilitation services and continuing access are needed to prevent disabilities.