ArticleInternational journal of occupational medicine and environmental health2026
An assessment of the suitability of online blood alcohol concentration calculators.
Article in International journal of occupational medicine and environmental health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThe increasing popularity of online blood alcohol concentration (BAC) calculators which estimate alcohol levels based on user-entered variables such as sex, weight, and alcohol consumption data raises concerns about their reliability and their influence on the decision to drive. The aim of this study is to assess the accuracy and usability of 36 online BAC calculators in Polish and English. MATERIAL AND
methodsThe calculated BAC values were compared with reference values obtained from 8 female, 8 male in both fasted and post-meal states. Blood alcohol concentration was evaluated at the predicted maximum value and at 60 min and 120 min post-consumption.
resultsSignificant variability was noted: mean values exceeded reference concentrations by 39-49%, and few calculators correlated with reference values. Only the BACscan, Aisko, and Website No. 3 calculators yielded results comparable to reference values under certain conditions (Passing-Bablok regression and Bland-Altman plots). Furthermore, in the present study an online survey (N = 103) found that although 73.2% of users had used an online breathalyzer, 85.4% of these did not base decisions (e.g., driving) on their results, believing them to be unreliable.
conclusionsOverall, most online BAC calculators lack sufficient precision and are unsuitable for assessing intoxication. These findings underscore the need for public education on the limitations of such tools and call for better regulation of their accuracy and presentation. Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2026;39(3):245-69.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.