New estimates of the number of children living with substance misusing parents: results from UK national household surveys

Table 1 Key findings relating to parental alcohol misuse from two 2004 national household surveys (HfSE, GHS).

Survey	HSfE	GHS
Year	2004	2004
Sample	6,704 adults	16,715 adults
% with at least 1 child <16 in the household	30.4%	29.0%
No. of children living in the household	1990	4163
Mean age of children <16	7.7 years	7.7 years
Current drinkers	82.1%	81.4%
Binge drinkers	16.7%	17.3%
Mental Health problem¹	12.1%	2.5%
Binge drinker with 1+ child	35.3%	33.0%
Sub-sample ²
Hazardous or Dangerous drinkers	5.1%	4.9%
Dangerous drinkers	1%	1%
Hazardous/Dangerous drinkers with 1+child	22.%	23.4%
Dangerous drinker with 1+child	20.0%	24.8%

¹Defined by a score of 4+ on the GHQ in the HSfE and the presence of at least one ICD mental health problem in the GHS
² For a sub-sample - those reporting alcohol units consumed on heaviest day in the past week, number of drinking days in past week and reporting that they drink the same amount each day, weekly units could be calculated. Hazardous refers to those exceeding 14 and 21 units weekly for females/males respectively. Dangerous drinking refers to those exceeding 35 and 50 units weekly for females/males respectively. However this sample was too small to generate population estimates from these surveys.

ISSN: 1471-2458