Teenagers may be more likely than adults of legal drinking age to come across alcohol ads in their favorite magazines, new research suggests.

The study of advertisements in 103 national magazines found that while readers between the ages of 12 and 20 were seeing fewer alcohol ads in 2002 than in 2001, they were still exposed to such images more often than older readers were. And girls appeared particularly likely to be bombarded with alcohol advertisements.

The researchers say they would like to see the alcohol industry do a better job of targeting its ads toward legal drinkers while minimizing underage exposure.

They report the findings in the July issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The authors estimate that in 2002, a reader between the ages of 12 and 20 saw 45 percent more ads for beer and ale than one who was at least 21 years old. Underage readers also saw more ads for distilled spirits and beverages known as low-alcohol refreshers.

That latter category - a group of typically sweet, fruity drinks - was the only one for which teen ad exposure grew between 2001 and 2002. Girls saw 216 percent more ads for low-alcohol refreshers in 2002, while boys saw 46 percent more.

In general, the study authors found, teenage girls were particularly overexposed to alcohol advertising in magazines. They estimate that ads for beer and low-alcohol refreshers were slightly more effective in reaching underage girls than women between the ages of 21 and 34, the age group the alcohol industry considers its prime target.

There’s no evidence that the industry is deliberately targeting underage readers with its ads, study leader Dr. David H. Jernigan told Reuters Health.

But the findings suggest a need for tighter control over who sees such advertising, according to Jernigan, who is research director at the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

“We hope that the industry will do a better job of keeping ads from the eyeballs of youths,” he said.

Jernigan also advocated ongoing research - conducted, possibly, by public health officials - to monitor how well alcohol advertisers are regulating themselves.

The question of whether alcohol advertising actually encourages kids to drink is controversial, and Jernigan noted that research has yielded mixed results. Parents and peers, he said, are clearly big influences.

Still, concern over the effects of ads is high enough that the Institute of Medicine, an independent organization that advises the federal government, has recommended that alcohol companies put stricter limits on where they place ads.

In the current study, a handful of magazines - such as Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly - were responsible for the bulk of teenagers’ exposure to alcohol ads.

Why girls appeared particularly overexposed to the ads is unclear, Jernigan said, but one reason could be that girls read women’s magazines more often than boys read publications for men.

An editorial published with the study calls for more research into the relationship between advertising and underage drinking. In it, Dr. Ralph Hingson of the Boston University School of Public Health points out that the alcohol industry spent $4 billion to promote its products in 2001.

“Given the unprecedented surge in alcohol advertising and promotion,” he writes, “new rigorous studies are needed to establish whether those practices are increasing youth exposure to alcohol ads and in turn increasing their alcohol use.”

SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, July 2004.