Intoxicated workers: ﬁndings from a national Australian survey Ken Pidd, Ann M. Roche & Femke Buisman-Pijlman National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction, Flinders University, SA, Australia ABSTRACT Aims To identify prevalence of alcohol and drug use and intoxication at work. Participants A total of 9828 Australian workers 14 years old. Setting Australia 2007. Measurements Work-place alcohol use and drug use, intoxication at work, industry and occupation of employment. Design Secondary analysis of a large nationally representative survey involving descriptive and weighted multivariate logistic regressions. Findings Differential pat- terns were identiﬁed by drug type, worker characteristics and occupational setting, controlling for demographic variables. Nearly 9% of workers surveyed (8.7%) usually drank alcohol at work and 0.9% usually used drugs at work. Attending work under the inﬂuence of alcohol was more prevalent (5.6%) than attending work under the inﬂuence of drugs (2.0%), and signiﬁcantly more likely among young, male, never married workers with no dependent children. Hospitality industry workers were 3.5 times more likely than other workers to drink alcohol and two to three times more likely to use drugs at work or attend work under the inﬂuence of alcohol or drugs. Other high-risk industries and occupations included construction, ﬁnancial services, tradespersons and unskilled workers. Conclusion More than one in 20 Australian workers admit to having worked under the inﬂuence of alcohol and almost one in 50 report attending work under the inﬂuence of psychoactive drugs. The rates are higher for some industries, such as the hospitality industry, than others. Keywords Alcohol, drugs, employee, intoxication, safety, worker, workforce, workplace. Correspondence to: Ken Pidd, National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction, Flinders University, GPO Box 2001, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia. E-mail: ken.pidd@ﬂinders.edu.au Submitted 23 July 2010; initial review completed 19 October 2010; ﬁnal version accepted 5 April 2011 INTRODUCTION There is growing interest internationally in the role of the work-place in alcohol and drug issues. However, relatively little deﬁnitive research has been undertaken to guide prevention and intervention efforts. Available research indicates that workers’ alcohol and drug con- sumption can have negative consequences for work-place safety [1] and productivity [2,3]. Moreover, alcohol and drug consumption patterns of workers vary signiﬁcantly between work-force groups [4,5]. Research to date has focused largely on the overall alcohol and drug use of the work-force rather than use in the work-place. ‘Work-place’ use is deﬁned as workers’ alcohol and other drug use that occurs during work hours, just prior to commencing work, or just after work but before going home. ‘Work-force’ use is deﬁned as workers’ overall alcohol and drug use that occurs at any time and largely reﬂects use outside work hours and away from the work-place. Distinguishing between work-place and work-force use is important when establishing work-place safety and productivity risk [6]. Workers who consume alcohol or drugs away from the work-place and do not return to work until consumption effects (e.g. intoxication, hangover, fatigue) have dissipated are unlikely to be a direct risk to safety or producti- vity. By contrast, consumption during (or just prior to) work hours is likely to produce a direct safety and/or productivity risk. Despite the importance of the distinction between work-force and work-place alcohol and drug use, research concerning work-place use is relatively scarce and limited in scope. Internationally, most research has focused on overall use among the work-force rather RESEARCH REPORT doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2011.03462.x © 2011 The Authors, Addiction © 2011 Society for the Study of Addiction Addiction, 106, 1623–1633