Unreasonable alcohol consummation can lead up to serious health consequences not always well understood. Therefore, some countries implemented warning labels on alcoholic beverages; those should inform consumers about possible health risks. Slovakia did not implement such labelling. Therefore, the National Institute of Public Health of the Slovak Republic, according to the National action plan on alcohol related harm for 2013 – 2020, conducted research focusing on the impact of health education in prevention of the alcohol addiction among adolescents. Aim of the study was to identify how to lead and improve the projects, education and other activities focused on alcohol control in Slovakia more effectively. Data for the descriptive cross-sectional study were collected between October and November 2015. Professionals from departments of the health promotion questioned 3289 respondents 15 – 29 years of age from randomly selected institutions, who were stratified by sex, age, geographical area and a type of the administrative area. The questionnaire was focused on the frequency of alcohol consumption, risk perception of negative impact of the alcohol, impact of public, community or individual intervention, perception of alcohol warnings, and an alcohol advertisement perception. Results of our study showed that approximately 40 % of the respondents don’t think that the implementation of the warnings would have an impact on behaviour related to alcohol consumption. Mostly men compared to women (45 % vs. 37 % of the respondents) and the respondents of age 15 – 29 years (42.7 % of the respondents) weren’t convinced about the warning labelling. The most effective warning in relation to decreasing the alcohol consumption was considered the following: “Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can seriously harm the health of the baby”. Approximately 48 % of the respondents perceived an alcohol advertisement mainly as informative, and only 2.7 % of the respondents always buy alcohol seen in advertisement. Based on our results, we recommend thorough research of an impact of the different types of alcohol warnings to specific population groups, with further implementation to practice.

Key words: alcohol – warning label – advertising – health