Alcohol Research UK has published three new reports on key issues relevant to the alcohol field:
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Delivering Alcohol IBA: Broadening the base from health to non-health contexts
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Using licensing to protect public health: From evidence to practice
The reports are findings from projects funded under Alcohol Research UK's research and development grants.
IBA in non-health settings?
The IBA in non health contexts report looks at the key issue of whether IBA as alcohol brief intervention can or should be delivered outside of more recognised health contexts like Primary Care. The evidence may be limited, but given the central role of IBA delivery across much of the UK, attempts are being made to integrate IBA in a wide range of settings.
The report suggests there is potential to for alcohol IBA to be delivered in a range of health and non-health settings, although 'organisational, professional and context- specific challenges impede implementation'. Certainly those in the field know well the difficulties of ensuring IBA takes place in practice, and even training, monitoring or incentives do not guarantee good routine delivery. One key finding: 'evaluation and monitoring should be built in to new initiatives to ensure appropriate use of resources and to promote a culture of learning from practice'.
Read the alcohol insight here or the full report.
Alcohol Health Workers - the national picture?
Another key strategy area is the employment of 'Alcohol Health Workers' (AHWs) in hospitals, as this report reviews. 45 out of the 48 hospitals responding to the survey had at least one dedicated AHW, but the services were 'frequently precarious, with limited management support, short-term funding and a lack of ownership from key agencies'.
As such the services are highly varied in terms of function, capacity and even target group. 'AHWs tended to migrate up the alcohol problem gradient, working with dependent drinkers rather than undertaking or encouraging identification and brief advice'. Although some correlation between services and high admissions were found, AHWs are more likely to be found in areas where alcohol is a broader strategic priority. Assessing the impact is a particular challenge, as such there is 'a need for an urgent need for more sophisticated outcome evaluations in this field.'
Read the alcohol insight here or the full report.
Using Licensing to Protect Public Health?
Another highly relevant area in UK alcohol policy, this report looked at work mainly in Scotland around improving knowledge and dialogue relating to public health and licensing. The study identifies the importance of the availability of alcohol as a key influence on consumption, hence Scotland's unique licensing objective “to protect and improve public health”. As part of this, using health based data to act on areas at risk of 'overprovision' is part of the statute.
However, in practice the use of Scotland's legislative levers face a number of challenges. One finding suggested 'confidence in the ability to gather, analyse and interpret the necessary information, including health data to inform effective regulation, was relatively low, suggesting the need for support'. A finding consistent with Scotland's own MESAS evaluation, but continuing to build 'capacity to promote and support using licensing to protect public health' should be undertaken.
Read the alcohol insight here or the full report.
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