Lecture 36 - Public Health Aspects of Alcohol Consumption

Question 1

List cases where public policy has lead to positive outcomes

Answer 1

• Road trauma prevention
  
  • Random breath testing
  • Mandatory seatbelts
  • Speed limits
• Tobacco
  
  • ​Plain packaging
  • Regulation of locations for smoking
  • Taxation

Question 2

What elements are essential for behaviour change?

Answer 2

• Evidence
• Regulation and legislation
• Pricing & taxation
• Community understanding & education
• Advertising

Question 3

What are the harmful effects of alcohol?

Answer 3

• To the individual
  
  • Plethora of adverse health outcomes
    
    • Alcoholic hepatitis
    • Cirrhosis
    • Liver failure etc.
  • The more frequent and greater magnitude of drinking, the greater the lifetime risk of death
• To society
  
  • ​Drain on health budget
  • Intoxicated individuals involved in violence
  • Property damage
  • Road injuries

Question 4

What is Australia’s relationship with alcohol?

Answer 4

• ‘A Nation built on alcohol’
• Early colonial period characterised by high rates of alcohol consumption
• ‘Work and bust’ → binge drinking
• Shouting
• Drinking rituals
• Important role in social situations
• Invention of the wine cask
• Temperance movement, but then this fell out of favour post WWII

Question 5

Describe current drinking trends in Australia

Answer 5

• Steady increase in alcohol consumption per capita
• Binge drinking culture is entrenched
• Quarter of hospitalisations of young people are alcohol-related
• Doubling in alcohol-attributable hospitalisations in last 20 years

Question 6

Describe the Alcopops story

Answer 6

• Alcopops:
  
  • ​Coloured, fizzy alcoholic beverages
  • Alcohol can’t be tasted
  • Marketed at teenage girls
• Tax
  
  • ​Introduced around 2007
  • Resulted in marked declines in consumption
• Political aspect:
  
  • ​’Big booze’ industry tried to label the tax as a failure
  • Considerable lobbying by the industry to repeal the tax

Question 7

What factors contribute to the alcohol consumption problems in Australia?

Answer 7

• Outlets
  
  • High density of outlets
    
    • ​Increasing numbers of licensed venues
  • Long opening hours
    
    • ​lock out?
• Advertising

Question 8

What are the policy options for alcohol?

Answer 8

• Harm minimisation
  
  • ​Over prohibition
• Regulation & legislation
  
  • ​Over industry self-regulation
  • Opening times
  • Liquor licences
    
    • ​Granting, owning, managing, enforcement
  • RSA requirements
  • Phasing out advertising
  • Phase out sponsorship of sport
• Public health education
  
  • ​Changing the culture of drinking in Australia
  • School education
    
    • ​Denormalise intoxication
    • Consensus on safe consumption
    • Awareness of long term risks
• Market interventions
  
  • ​Pricing taxation
    
    • ​Minimum floor price