More Americans now believe that drinking alcohol in moderation is unhealthy, according to a new Gallup poll.
THE Gallup poll found that 45% of Americans believe that drinking in moderation – one or two alcoholic drinks a day – is unhealthy. This percentage marks a new historic high and is 6 percentage points higher than that recorded in last year’s survey.
It’s also 17 percentage points higher than when the poll was conducted in 2018, according to Gallup.
Similar shares of U.S. adults said they believe drinking in moderation doesn’t make any difference to their health, according to the survey. Forty-three percent said drinking in moderation makes no difference, while 8 percent said it is healthy.
The survey also found that nearly 9 in 10 adults said drinking alcohol is “very” or “somewhat” harmful. Meanwhile, 8% said it was “not very harmful” and 2% said it was “not harmful at all.”
When asked what the best health advice is for the average drinker, 55% said reducing the amount of alcohol they consume was the best advice. Twenty-two percent said that stopping drinking is the best advice, 17 percent said they would not change their drinking habits and 6 percent had no opinion.
Young adults were more likely to say drinking alcohol is bad for their health, according to Gallup. Nearly two-thirds – 65 percent – of respondents aged 18 to 35 said that moderate alcohol consumption is harmful to their health, while 37 percent of those aged 35 to 54 and 39 percent of those aged 55 and over most said the same.
The survey found that 58% of adults said they drink alcohol, which is slightly below the historical trend average of 63%. Among adults who drink alcohol, 61 percent reported drinking in the last week and 38 percent said their last drink was more than a week ago.
The percentage of young adults who report consuming alcohol also shows a decreasing trend, according to the survey. An average of 59 percent of adults ages 18 to 34 said they consumed alcohol, according to aggregated Gallup data between 2021 and 2024. This is lower than the average of 65 percent of young adults who reported drinking alcohol between 2016 and 2019, according to the data.
The results are based on the Gallup survey of spending habits, conducted July 1-21 among 1,010 U.S. adults. It has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points. For results based on responses from adults who consume alcoholic beverages, the margin of sampling error is 5 percentage points.
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