www.alkoholpolitik.ch

Eighth plenary meeting of the European Alcohol and health Forum, Brussels, 8 April 2011 – Summary report available
Released 06 June 2011
European Alcohol and Health Forum – List of members updated
Released 24 May 2011
8th meeting of the Committee on National Alcohol Policy and Action, Luxembourg, 1-2 March 2011 – Summary report and presentations available
(Source: EU, 06/06/11)

Drinking motives have a prominent role in cognitive models of adolescent and adult alcohol decision-making … The complementary construct of motivation not to drink has received less attention. …
We examined how abstinence motives interacted with drinking motives and alcohol expectancies to predict alcohol consumption in samples of US high school students (N > 2,500).
Nondrinking motives predicted lower rates of lifetime and current alcohol use. Motives not to drink interacted with specific drinking motives, like social and coping motives, and alcohol expectancies to predict certain aspects of drinking behavior. For example, motives not to drink had the greatest impact on youth with weaker social motivations.
Findings highlight the distinction between motives not to drink and other alcohol-related cognitions in predicting adolescent alcohol consumption.
This work not only supports the utility of this construct in developing models of youth alcohol-related decision-making but also has implications for prevention programming. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 06/04/11)

International News from Sweden, UK, USA, Canada, Malaysia, India etc. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 05/30/11)

The influence of „Big Alcohol“ in the health arena deserves as much scrutiny as Big Pharma and Big Tobacco, especially in light of evidence of bias in funded research, unsupported claims of benefit, and inappropriate promotion and marketing by the alcohol industry, says a new editorial in this week’s PLoS Medicine. The PLoS Medicine editors argue that the statistics about problem drinking are troubling enough, but what also demands more attention and research is the influence of the alcohol industry on health research, government policy, and public perceptions of the harms and benefits of alcohol. … (Source: Medical News Today, 05/31/11)

This statistical report acts as a reference point for health issues relating to alcohol use and misuse, providing information obtained from a number of sources in a user-friendly format. It covers topics such as drinking habits and behaviours among adults (aged 16 and over) and school children (aged 11 to 15), drinking-related ill health and mortality, affordability of alcohol and alcohol-related costs. The report contains previously published information and also includes additional new analyses. The new analyses are mainly obtained from The NHS Information Centre’s Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) system and Prescribing data. The report also include up to date information on the latest alcohol related government policies and targets and contains links to further sources of useful information. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/27/11) NHS Information Center, 2011

Background: Alcohol and drug prevention is high on the public health agenda in many countries. An increasing
trend is the call for evidence-based practice. In Sweden in 2002 an innovative project portfolio including an
integrated research and competence-building strategy for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) was designed
by the National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW). This research strategy case study is based on this initiative.
Methods: The embedded case study includes 135 projects in 69 organisations and 14 in-depth process or effect
studies. …
Conclusions: This research strategy case study shows that it is possible to integrate research into alcohol and drug
prevention programs run by NGOs, and thereby contribute to a more evidence-based practice. A core element is
developing a trustful partnership between the researchers and the organisations. Moreover, the funding agency
must acknowledge the importance of knowledge development and allocating resources to research groups that is
capable of cooperating with practitioners and NGOs. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/26/11) substanceabusepolicy.com, 4/14/11

8th meeting of the Committee on National Alcohol Policy and Action, Luxembourg, 1-2 March 2011 Summary report and presentations available:
http://ec.europa.eu/health/alcohol/events/ev_20110301_en.htm (Download very slow, dates maybe too big.)

The European Week Against Cancer is back!
Between 25 and 31 May each year organizations in Europe will join forces to identify ways to prevent cancer. Under the leadership of the Association of European Cancer Leagues (ECL) and the European Partnership Action Against Cancer, the European Week Against Cancer (EWAC) will give new impetus to cancer prevention and healthy lifestyles in Europe by promoting the European Code Against Cancer. “We’re really glad that the EWAC is back,” says Andrea Lavesson, president of Active – sobriety, friendship and peace, a European youth organization. “And we support the leadership of ECL in its efforts to prevent cancers because we know that around 40% of all cancer cases could be prevented, if screening policies and prevention methods were improved and if Europeans would lead healthier lifestyles.”
Every year more than 3 million Europeans are diagnosed with cancer, making cancer the most common cause of death in Europe after heart disease. Over the years evidence has been accumulated by scientists from all over the world clearly showing that the use of alcohol increases the risk of cancer. The greater the amount of alcohol consumed, the greater the risk of cancers of the mouth, larynx, breast, liver and colorectum. Thus the European Code Against Cancer 1 states that ‘If you drink alcohol, whether beer, wine or spirits, moderate your consumption to two drinks per day if you are a man or one drink per day if you are a woman’. However ”even these levels incur a certain amount of risk, it is important that the general public, policy makers and alcohol producers are aware of the risks and do everything they can to minimize them,” says Emma Woodford from European Cancer Leagues. … (Source: Press Release activeeurope.org, 5/25/11)

Background: To avoid strong declines in the quality of life due to population ageing, and to ensure sustainability of the health care system, reductions in the burden of disability among elderly populations are urgently needed. Life style interventions may help to reduce the years lived with one or more disabilities, but it is not fully understood which life style factor has the largest potential for such reductions. Therefore, the primary aim of this paper is to compare the effect of BMI, smoking and alcohol consumption on life expectancy with disability, using the Sullivan life table method. …
Results: Life expectancy at age 55 differed by 1.4 years among groups defined in terms of BMI, 4.0 years by smoking status, and 3.0 years by alcohol consumption. Years lived with disability differed by 2.8 years according to BMI, 0.2 years by smoking and 1.6 by alcohol consumption. Obese persons could expect to live more years with disability (5.9 years) than smokers (3.8 years) and drinkers (3.1 years). Employing information on time to death led to lower estimates of years lived with disability, and to smaller differences in these years according to BMI (2.1 years), alcohol (1.2 years), and smoking (0.1 years). … (Source: biomedcentral.com, 5/24/11)

News from Sweden, Finland, USA, Australia, UK, Germany, Taiwan, India and some studies. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/23/11)