The National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) has said alcohol is still at the top of the list for the most abused substance in Kenya.
According to the released report of the 2022 national survey on the “Status of Drugs and Substance Use in Kenya”, alcohol remains the most widely used as there are cheaper and readily available alcoholic products especially chang’aa, traditional brews, and potable spirits.
The cross-sectional study conducted shows that overall awareness of alcohol products for the population aged 15 – 65 years shows that manufactured legal alcohol, chang’aa, and traditional liquor had the highest overall awareness at 89 percent, 87 percent, and 84 percent, respectively.
Overall awareness of potable spirits was higher in urban areas (79.1%) compared to rural areas (71.7%). The results show that the Western region had the highest overall awareness of at least one type of alcohol at 100 percent.
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Analysis based on age showed that one in five people aged 15 – 65 years (19%) had used at least one type of alcohol in their lifetime. Persons aged 25 – 35 years had the highest prevalence of lifetime use of alcohol at 22 percent. Males had a higher prevalence of lifetime use of alcohol compared to females. Lifetime use of manufactured legal alcohol was higher in urban areas (17.5%) while lifetime use of chang’aa was highest in rural areas (6.3%).
The western region led with the highest prevalence of lifetime use of chang’aa (13.5%) and traditional liquor (17.4%).
Males had a higher prevalence of lifetime use of alcohol (20.0%) compared to females (7.3%) with those in urban areas.