www.alkoholpolitik.ch

‘Side Stepping Alcohol Misuse’, an alcohol awareness project run by London Active Communities and Premier Rugby, is due to kick off across the country this month after receiving £100,000 funding from the charity, Drinkaware. The ground-breaking new youth inclusion project will see specially trained community staff from Premiership Rugby Clubs and local youth workers deliver sports-based alcohol education to young people aged 13 to 19. The programme will target hard to reach and disadvantaged communities in 12 areas, including Newcastle, Leeds and London. (Source: Medical News Today, 3/5/10)

Malawi and Botswana became the two first countries to test a new training package on evidence-based alcohol policies. A third pilot course will be held in Namibia next week.
The new training program has been developed by FORUT and Blue Cross Norway. The background for the initiative is that there exists a broad knowledge base on which types of interventions that are most effective to reduce alcohol-related harm. However, there is a severe information gap. The existing knowledge is not sufficiently distributed to those who need it most; policy makers, politicians, government experts, NGO leaders and the media. This is case for most countries of the world, probably all. (Source: ADD Bulletin 1/2010) Comment: This training should come to Switzerland too.

Alcohol consumption among adolescents is a serious public health concern. Research has shown that prevention programs targeting parents can help prevent underage drinking. The problem is that parental participation in these kinds of interventions is generally low. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to examine non-participation in a parental support program aiming to prevent underage alcohol drinking. The Health Belief Model has been used as a tool for the analysis. (Source: BMC Public Health, 12/21/09)

“Rape educators want to train New Zealand’s bar staff to intervene when they see ‘predatory males’ plying women with drinks during the Rugby World Cup. Rape Prevention Education (formerly Rape Crisis) has teamed up with the police, Accident Compensation Corporation and the hospitality industry to train 130 bar staff in Auckland and Wellington in a pilot programme this year. Director Kim McGregor said she hoped the other agencies would help to extend the programme nationally in the lead-up to the World Cup, which kicks off in September 2011. ‘We need to do much more on prevention and social attitudes, for example around the [Cup],’ she said. ‘For us it’s an opportunity. We have two years to prepare for it.’ The programme targets bars because three-quarters of sexual offenders and half of all “date rape” victims were drinking or taking drugs before offences occurred. A fifth of sexual violence happens in or around licensed premises.” (Source: Harvard World Health News, 12/17/09) The New Zealand Herald, 12/12/09

The rigors of medical training sharpen a doctor’s ability to diagnose and treat a wide variety of human afflictions. However, drug abuse and addiction are often insufficiently covered in medical school curricula, despite the fact that drug use affects a wide range of health conditions and drug abuse and addiction are themselves major public health issues.
To improve drug abuse and addiction training of future physicians, the National Institute on Drug Abuse(NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, unveiled a series of new teaching tools, through its Centers of Excellence for Physician Information Program (NIDA CoEs), at the Association of American Medical Colleges 2009 Annual Meeting’s “Innovations in Medical Education” Exhibit in Boston. (Source: Join Together, 12/1/09)