A measure of alcohol affordability for Sweden: Capturing trends among different demographic groups.

The World Health Organization has rated alcohol abuse as one of the leading risk factors for population health worldwide and emphasises the relevance of alcohol affordability (AA) measures as important instruments to monitor alcohol control policy. The present study suggests an AA index that is suitable for measuring AA in Sweden, where off-premises alcohol is exclusively distributed by Systembolaget, the government-owned chain of liquor stores. Sweden provides uniform off-premises prices for alcohol and extensive register data, which profits the accuracy of this index.