Drinkaware 2014 conference: adolescent drinking on the brain, behaviour change projects & more

Drinkaware, the industry funded alcohol education charity recently held its 2014 conference in London.

Drinkaware funded projects and other work covered on the day included:

• 'The effects of alcohol on the adolescent brain', by Sarah-Hayne Blakmore, Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL. View the presentation and factsheet here

• The 'What's in Your Glass?' Berkshire campaign which saw 24,000 educational kits being distributed in 150 pharmacies across Berkshire. See here for the project presentation, evaluation presentation and factsheet.

• 'Parental influence and delaying the age of first drink' by Anne Foster, Drinkaware's Director of Marketing and Communications presentation here

• The 'Spot the Difference' Glasgow campaign encouraging lower strength drink purchasing. See the project presentation here  or evalutation presentation here

• A presentation on 'Do Something Different', an initiative aiming to affect behaviour change through actions. View Karen Pine's presentation here

• Drinkaware funded 'Drunken Nights Out' research on drunkenness in the night time economy. View the presentation and the factsheet on the preliminary findings

• See also the Drinkaware Digital Overview 2013 and a Storify covering Twitter activity on the day.

Drinkaware recently responded to mixed review which raised concerns over its effectiveness. In particular the independent report said there were perceptions of a lack of an evidence base to support its work, a perception of industry influence and weak stakeholder engagement.

As previously highlighted, improving stakeholder engagement with the public health community will not prove an easy task for any industry funded organisation. Many health groups will be sympathetic to warnings that such activities serve only as an inert attempt at industry responsibility, or worse a smokescreen for averting evidence based policy.

Nonetheless it was acknowledged on the day that the evidence base was weak for such educational approaches, so robust research and evaluation was crucial. Yet Drinkaware has a huge reach - the website has 6 million visitors to the website each year, equivalent to 1 in 10 of the UK population. Far more than both NHS Choices alcohol pages or Chage4Life drink swap are likely to get.