Alcohol consumption and abuse among adolescents and young adults have been recognized as significant risk behaviors and increasing the likelihood of diverse health and social problems. The present study is to investigate the prevalence and associated factors of alcohol use by undergraduate medical students of the University of Lagos, Nigeria. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted amongst undergraduate medical students at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Nigeria, who voluntarily participated in the study and were recruited using stratified random sampling method after ethical approval and informed consent were obtained. These students were recruited from the second (200 level) to sixth (600 level) year in the medical programme. Three hundred and fifty carefully structured questionnaires were self-administered and included questions on sociodemographic characteristics, prevalence, associated factors, knowledge, attitude, and practice of alcohol use by undergraduate medical students. The present study shows the associations between socio-demographic characteristics and alcohol consumption by the medical students. There was a significant association between level or year of study of medical students and alcohol consumption (p = 0.001). There was a statistically significant association between hall of residence and alcohol consumption (p = 0.003). There was a statistically significant association between ethnic group and alcohol consumption (p = 0.001). Finally, there was a significant differential between monthly allowance of those who consume alcohol (p = 0.001). There were no significant associations between age, gender, marital status, religion, and employment status, and alcohol use by the medical students. Data of the present study indicate that 8.30% of these medical students reported drinking alcohol and used other substances. These results suggest that interventions aimed at reducing alcohol consumption among the undergraduate medical students' population should take into account these socio-demographic factors. Alcohol use by these medical students requires preventive measures, screening, counselling, and health care services to safeguard the health profession and the general populace.

Osaretin A.T. Ebuehi has completed his PhD at the age of 30 years from University of Lagos, Nigeria. He is a graduate of the University of Lagos, Nigeria, where he obtained B.Sc. (Hons.) (1985), M.Phil. (1990), Ph.D. (1994) in biochemistry; an MBA (1999), distinction in PGD (2002) and MSc in public health (2023). His areas of specialization are neuro-biochemistry, nutritional biochemistry, food science, nutrigenomics, and medical biochemistry. He was the professor and head of Biochemistry Department, University of Lagos, Nigeria (2010–2014) and the deputy provost of the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Nigeria (2020–2024). He has over 270 publications that have been cited over 1752 times, and his publication h-index is 21. He has served as editor-in-chief and has been serving as an editorial board member of several reputed journals.