A QUALITATIVE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW EXPLORING ROLES, RISKS, AND SOCIAL PATTERNS OF DRINKING IN LATER LIFE
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Older adults may be at risk from even moderate levels of drinking, due to conditions and medications that are problematic when combined with alcohol. Current cohorts of older adults may have consumed alcohol regularly through most of their adult life. This represents additional risk of chronic disease linked to their drinking. Alcohol policy and practice has therefore turned to focus on this older group. However, in combatting alcohol use amongst older adults, we must first consider the roles of alcohol in their lives. This recently completed systematic review synthesises qualitative research evidence on older adults’ perceptions of non-dependent drinking in later life. Medline, PsychINFO, Scopus, ASSIA and CINAHL databases were systematically searched for relevant articles. The principles of thematic analysis were applied to synthesise findings. Twenty-four studies were identified from ten different countries, including the USA, Canada and the UK. Four key themes were: i) Routines and Rituals, ii) Self-image as a Responsible Drinker, iii) Alcohol and the Ageing Body, iv) Access to Alcohol. Differences in roles and patterns of drinking between genders and age groups, across cultures and socioeconomic status, are explored. Drinking creates social and leisure opportunities, which may have depleted due to retirement and other factors in later life. Health concerns and issues surrounding purchasing alcohol or getting to drinking settings are important considerations for older drinkers. These roles and practicalities are contrasted against those identified for younger age groups in other qualitative studies. Recommendations for alcohol-related policy and practice are presented given these findings.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.033 | 0.082 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.011 | 0.015 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".