www.alkoholpolitik.ch

… Than In Other European Countries
The UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand have similar cultures, genetic backgrounds and drinking cultures, and, until the mid-1980s, had similar death rates from liver disease. However, while liver death rates in most of these countries have remained low since then, the UK has seen a doubling of its liver death rate from 4.9 per 100,000 population to 11.4. In a Comment published Online First by The Lancet, three experts, including Royal College of Physicians Past President Ian Gilmore, discuss the thousands of deaths from liver disease that can be avoided if the UK adopts appropriate alcohol policies. (Source: Medical News Today, 02/22/11)

Food and alcohol firms are obliged to maximise profit. To include them in health policy planning is a recipe for disaster.
by Anna Gilmore and Jeff Collin
Alarm bells rang in the public health community when Andrew Lansley announced last summer that leading food and alcohol companies were being invited to join a „partnership“ with government to help address the obesity and alcohol epidemics. As further details of the Public Health Responsibility Deal for alcohol emerge, much through investigative work by the Guardian, the bells ring ever louder.
The Public Health Responsibility Deal, part of the government’s „big society“ idea, is just one of several such deals. For alcohol and obesity, it brings together large numbers of food and alcohol company representatives with far fewer government and public health representatives in a series of „networks“ charged with encouraging and enabling consumers to adopt better diets and drink sensibly. However, full details of their function or how they relate to broader public health policies have yet to emerge. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 02/22/11) guardian.co.uk, 21 February 2011 our Comment: This is a very competent article. But most of the readers are not informed enough to understand and accept it. Education is needed. Not in order to reduce alcohol harm but to understand the problem and which control measures are necessary to reduce consumption and alcohol related harm. We are all passiv-drinkers. We suffer from reduced quality of life and we pay without beeing asked to, our whole life for immense alcohol related social costs. This is a big loss of freedom.

—the evidence base for European intervention. (by 8 authors)
Aims: Reducing alcohol-related harm in young people is a major priority across Europe. Much alcohol use and associated harm in young people occurs in public drinking environments. This review aims to identity environmental factors in drinking establishements that are associated with increased alcohol consumption and associated harm and to understand the extent of study in this area across Europe.
Methods: A systematic literature search identified studies that had explored associations between physical, staffing and social factors in drinking environments and increased alcohol use or alcohol-related harm. …
Conclusions: Drinking establishments, their management and the behaviours of the young people who use them vary widely across Europe. While international research shows that environmental factors in drinking settings can have an important influence on alcohol-related harm, there is currently a scarcity of knowledge on the relevance and impacts of such factors in modern European settings. Developing this knowledge will support the implementation of strategies to create drinking environments in Europe that are less conducive to risky drinking and alcohol-related harm. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 02/20/11) onlinelibrary.wiley.com, 02/16/11

Authors: Jürgen Rehm, Emanuele Scafato
Aims: Alcohol is a major risk factor for burden of disease and injury in Europe, and contributes markedly to between region differences in life expectancy. Monitoring and surveillance systems have shown to be a key factor in implementing effective policies. The aim of this paper is to propose a system of indicators for alcohol consumption and attributable harm which can be used as an over-time monitoring tool at the country level as well as for comparisons between countries. …
Conclusions: National and European Union-wide monitoring systems for alcohol exposure and attributable harm to inform public health-related policy decisions could be implemented easily. The establishement of such monitoring systems would follow the recent World Assembly resolution for a global strategy to reduce alcohol-related harm. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 02/20/11) onlinelibrary.wiley.com, 02/16/11

Authors: Peter Anderson, Antoni Gual
Aims: To consider, briefly, science’s role in informing alcohol policy, and how science could help reframe the present governance of alcohol policy. …
Results: Three endeavours are considered important for science’s role in informing alcohol policy: modelling studies that help predict the outcomes of differing policy approaches; studying the impact of live policy changes as a powerful set of natural experiments; and, improved study of the impact of integrated, coordinated and joined up alcohol policies, as opposed to the impact of individual alcohol policy measures. Three areas where science can contribute to strengthened alcohol policy governance include: analysis of different governance architectures that might promote joined-up actions between different sectors; the design of better metrics that measure the impact of public and private sector actions on health; and, by identifying incentives that help consumers make choices on the use of alcohol that improve health.
Conclusions: The impact of science on better alcohol policy governance can only happen if there is more and better dialogue between scientists and those who design alcohol policy. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 02/20/11) onlinelibrary.wiley.com, 02/16/11 our Comment: The problem is that politicians are under pressure of the alcohol industry and not willing to listen to science.

Authors: Rebecca Gordon, Peter Anderson.
Aims: To describe the extent to which the content of the European Commission’s Communication on alcohol reflects public health-based scientific evidence.
Findings: …
Conclusions: The Communication reflects the science, in that it acknowledges the significance of alcohol as a social and health determinant in Europe. However, it places more emphasis on policy actions with less evidence for effectiveness than on those with strong evidence. It also focuses its efforts more on mapping member state actions and coordinating knowledge exchange than on providing concrete recommendations for action or developing Europe-wide policy measures. This may be a compromise between the rights of Member States to develop national policy and legislation and the obligation of the European Union as a collaborative body to protect health. Furthermore, it has been suggested that the European Union’s roots as a trading block emphasizes collaboration with industry stakeholders and this influences the ability to prioritize health over trade considerations. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 02/20/11) onlinelibrary.wiley.com, 02/16/11

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has published a free article assessing the nudge approach now popular with US and UK health policy makers. Judging nudging: can nudging improve population health? explores the concept of ’nudge‘ and whether it can make an impact on areas such as alcohol harm and obesity.
It explains nudging as ‚an approach to behaviour change that focuses on altering environmental cues to prompt healthier behaviour‘, rather than relying on the provision of information such as through health campaigns. Citing the popularisation of the term ’nudge‘ in the book (and now blog) of the same title, the article sets out:
Nudge“…nudging could include a wide variety of approaches to altering social or physical environments to make certain behaviours more likely. These might include providing information about what others are doing (“social norm feedback”) … changing the defaults that surround the serving of food and drinks, or altering the layout of buildings to cue physical activity.“ … (Source: The British Medical Journal (BMJ), 02/22/11) Comment: Nudging can only be a very little aspect in alcohol prevention, but still a useful one. As the British Government is not willing to act effectfully, such small items get attention like a straw.

For the first time, delegations from all 193 Member States of World Health Organization (WHO) reached consensus at the World Health Assembly on a global strategy to confront the harmful use of alcohol. Since 2008, WHO has been in the process of drafting a global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. On Friday 21 May 2010 the Sixty-third session of the World Health Assembly adopted by consensus resolution WHA63.13, which endorses the global strategy. (Source: WHO) Comment: Now the final text is available here. (pdf)

..invest to save says Alcohol Concern amidst rising hospital admissions.
Alcohol-related hospital admissions could hit 1.5 million a year by 2015 if further investment in alcohol is not prioritised, say Alcohol Concern. The charity calls for increased investment as the rising trend of alcohol-related hospital admissions could bring to the cost of alcohol to the NHS to £3.7 billion per year.
Read the report ‚Making alcohol a health prority: opportunities to reduce alcohol harms and rising costs‘ [pdf] An Alcohol Concern press release

The paper aims to discuss the thorny issues of industry-funded social marketing campaigns. Can the tobacco industry be trusted to educate our children about the dangers of smoking? Is a brewer the best source of health promotion? The paper argues for transparency and critical appraisal. The paper looks at the issues of tobacco and alcohol in more detail, emphasises the need for caution and suggests guidelines for future practice. … (Source: Alcohol Reports, 02/12/11) emeraldinsight.com