Alcohol use dynamics and mitigation among adolescents in rural Kenya

Alcohol use has remained a critical problem among adolescents in Kenya. The use is conceptualized as a behavior which results from the interplay between the social-economic environment and personal factors. The purpose of the study was to assess the prevalence, predictors and alleviation of alcohol use among adolescents in rural Nyeri, Kenya. The study was a quasi-experimental quantitative study in which purposive and simple random sampling were used to select participants (n=1038) from eight county administrative units. A self-administered questionnaire was employed to collect data at baseline and endline after six months. Descriptive statistics were applied to summarize categorical and continuous variables while Odds Ratio (OR) and 95% Confidence Interval (CI) brought out the estimated strength of association between independent and the dependent variables. Effectiveness of the mitigation strategy applied was assessed after six months with reference to the baseline. 48.6% of the participants indicated having used alcohol in their lifetime, with 34.7% reporting alcohol consumption in the last one month.  Seven independent predictors of alcohol use among the participants were identified using binary logistic regression at P<0.05. Application of five life skills had significant protective effect on alcohol use (OR=0.36; 95% CI: 0.26 – 0.48; p=0.001) whereby a student enrolled in the experimental group was 64% less likely to use alcohol compared to one in the control group. Life skills were therefore found to be effective in empowering adolescents to develop safe and healthy behavior with regard to alcohol use reduction.