www.alkoholpolitik.ch

For women, this weekend’s International Women’s Day holiday is supposed to be a time to receive gifts and affection from the men in their lives. For the country, it means a welcome three-day weekend. But for all too many people, the holiday also offers an excuse to drink.
The good news is that the national drinking problem isn’t quite as bad as many thought. The World Health Organization concluded in a report last month that Russia is apparently no longer the world leader in per capita alcohol consumption. In fact, at 15.7 liters of pure alcohol per capita, Russia is not even on the medal stand of the global drinking games, just beating out Ukraine (15.6 liters) for fourth place behind bronze medalist Hungary (16.3 liters), the Czech Republic (16.5 liters) in second place, and the world-champion guzzlers from Moldova, who quaff an astounding 19.2 liters of pure alcohol per year.
But do those numbers actually mean anything? How much do Russians really drink? … (Source: Harvard World Health News, 03/10/11) themoscowtimes.com, 03/05/11

In New York City, a professor of Human Ecology from Rutgers University is taking a giant step from documenting the urban advertising landscape toward changing it. In the process, she hopes to improve the health of neighborhoods impacted by blight such as outdoor alcohol advertising. …
Dr. Naa Oyo Kwate’s research focuses on mapping urban environments and their impact on health. For example, she found that an astonishing twenty-five percent of outdoor advertising in Central Harlem was dedicated to promoting alcohol. Exposure to the alcohol ads increased black women’s chances of being a problem drinker by up to thirteen percent. … (Source: Marin Institute, 03/08/11) our Online-Comment: My compliments to that researcher. Usually scientists don’t care much what happens to their study results. But she feels responsible that there is progress.

Aims The impact of alcohol on those other than the drinker is an under-researched area with important policy implications. This study is a first step in investigating relationships between exposure to heavy drinkers in respondent’s lives with measures of health status and wellbeing.
Design setting and participants A cross-sectional general population survey was carried out among 3068 New Zealand residents aged 12–80 years (response rate 64%) using an in-house computer-assisted telephone interviewing system.
Findings More than one in four of the sample had experienced someone they considered to be a heavy drinker in their environment in the past 12 months.
Conclusions: Cross-sectional data from a general population sample suggest that there is a relationship between exposure to heavy drinkers and reduced personal wellbeing and poorer health status. Exposure to heavy drinkers may have negative impacts for others. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 03/08/11) onlinelibrary.wiley.com, 03/07/11

Alcohol’s role in everything from injury and relationship breakdown to trouble with the police, emerges in a poll of 2,221 people commissioned by the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG).
According to the survey, some 11% of people polled have seen a friend or relative’s relationship end as a direct result of heavy drinking. One in five (21%) know someone who has driven while over the legal alcohol limit. And 51% know someone who has been a victim of alcohol-related violence, or has been attacked themselves.
The survey also found that 14% of children are being brought up in a family where at least one adult has a drink problem.
The YouGov poll paints a graphic picture of alcohol’s many negative consequences. The survey found that:… (Source: Eurocare Newsletter January-February 2011)

A retired Pasadena high school teacher was arrested Thursday for allegedly supplying alcohol to current and former students at his home, police said. (Source: Google Alcohol News, 02/26/11) latimesblogs.latimes.com, 02/25/11

A widely used index for assessing adolescent drinking-related problems has been found to be effective at predicting the future alcohol dependence of teen-age drinkers, according to an Indiana University study which also found that the association was stronger for adolescent female drinkers.
The federally funded study, available now online in advance of print in the journal „Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research,“ involved 597 Finnish twins — 300 male and 297 female — who were assessed at ages 18 and 25. (Source: Medical News Today, 02/16/11)

Our objective was to examine whether components of the neighborhood alcohol environment—liquor store, on-premise outlet, convenience store, and supermarket densities—are positively associated with at-risk alcohol consumption among African-American drinkers.
A multilevel cross-sectional sample of 321 African-American women and men ages 21 to 65 years recruited from April 2002 to May 2003 from three community-based healthcare clinics in New Orleans, Louisiana, was studied.
The alcohol environment had a significant impact on at-risk alcohol consumption among African-American drinkers, specifically liquor store density …Furthermore, the influence of the alcohol environment was much stronger for African-American female drinkers….
Treatment and prevention programs should take into account the physical environment, and the concentration of outlets in minority neighborhoods must be addressed as it poses potential health risks to the residents of these neighborhoods. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 02/17/11)

Drinking alcohol may help put you to sleep, but as the night wears on—and the booze wears off—you may find yourself tossing and turning. This may be especially true if you’re a woman, according to a new study.
Women who go to bed tipsy sleep much less soundly than men who have the same blood-alcohol content (BAC), the study found. Whereas alcohol had only a minor impact on men’s sleep, the female study participants slept more fitfully and for less time after a night of drinking than they did when they were sober. (Source: Google Alcohol News, 02/16/11) news.health.com, 02/15/11

In a systematic review of current evidence published in this week’s PLoS Medicine, the authors-Jim McCambridge from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK, and colleagues-conclude that there is enough evidence to recommend that reducing drinking during late adolescence is likely to be important for preventing long-term adverse consequences of drinking, as well as protecting against more immediate harms. (Source: Medical News Today, 02/09/11)

Women who are satisfied with everyday life and are involved in leisure activities rarely have problems with alcohol, reveals a thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Occupational therapist Christina Andersson, who wrote the thesis, has looked at how everyday life affects alcohol consumption as part of the wider Women and Alcohol in Gothenburg (WAG) population study which has been ongoing at the Sahlgrenska Academy since the mid-1980s. (Source: Medical News Today, 02/08/11)