- Explain to patients who ask that the attitude toward drinking at a person's workplace can affect his or her drinking behavior on and off the job.
TORONTO, May 25 -- Workers are less likely to drink heavily, frequently, or at work if the companies discourage drinking, researchers found.
In environments where drinking is most discouraged, workers were 45% less likely to be heavy drinkers, 54% less likely to be frequent drinkers, and 69% less likely to drink at work than their counterparts in workplaces with the most relaxed attitudes toward drinking, according to an online report in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
The percentage of the various drinking behaviors decreased as social norms discouraging drinking increased, said Benjamin C. Amick, Ph.D., of the Institute for Work and Health here and the University of Texas, Houston.
Dr. Amick and colleagues surveyed 5,338 workers at 16 Fortune 500 companies. Almost 40% were drinkers; 19% (1,015) were classified as heavy drinkers outside of work, 8% (423) as frequent drinkers, and 11% (577) as drinking at work.
