The Perceived Neighborhood Crime and Hazardous Alcohol Use Among Youth in University of the Northeastern Thailand Context

Background: the residents’ perceptions of the crime and lack of safety with their neighborhoodenvironment, associated with stress that confers risk for drinking .while many studies have focused on adult drinking, less is known about how subjective neighborhood crime influences drinking during adolescent. we aimed to determine the association of perceived neighborhood crime and youth alcohol use.study design: a cross-sectional study.methods: this study was conducted on 1087 university youths from 30 neighborhood clusters innortheastern thailand from may 2019 to mar 2020 .the data were collected by self-administeredquestionnaire .a multilevel logistic regression model was applied to examine the effect of perceivedneighborhood crime on hazardous alcohol use.results :most of youths were female, approximately 60.7 %reported hazardous alcohol use, andthe average perceived neighborhood crime score was 65.1 (standard deviation, 2.1) .the perceivedneighborhood crime was associated with hazardous alcohol use; a 1-unit increase in the scores forperceived neighborhood crime corresponded to a 20 %increase in hazardous alcohol use. the roleof perceived neighborhood crime on alcohol use varied among males, but not females.conclusion :the perceived neighborhood crime plays a role in the increase likelihood ofhazardous alcohol use .the consideration of neighborhood crime context is important to design thealcohol preventive and intervention strategies.