Alcohol Policy UK

IAS Alert October 2019: marketing, Russia policy effects, MUP impacts, cancer & more

The latest Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS) Alcohol Alert: October 2019 is now available (here for PDF version). Read the editorial here and articles below:

• IAS hosts alcohol marketing event on protecting the vulnerable
• Drastic decline in alcohol-related deaths in Russia
• Does the EU Alcohol Health Forum have a future?
• MUP short-term economic impact on alcohol industry ‘modest’
• Facebook identifies kids ‘interested in’ booze for advertisers
• Halve alcohol guidelines to minimise dementia risk
• Money motivates GPs to initiate alcohol screening
• Alcohol duty cuts linked to 2,000 additional deaths in England
• Alcohol industry messaging puts pregnant women at risk
• Wales sets March 2020 date for 50p MUP
• Review calls time on use of gender stereotypes in alcohol marketing
• Cancer risk 30 times more likely for those who drink AND smoke
• ALCOHOL SNAPSHOT: Restrictive alcohol policies have increased the number of non-drinkers in Russia

Alcohol & cancer: SHAAP guide for professionals

New alcohol and cancer guidance from Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) has been released, providing information and advice for health professionals to help advise patients and recognise symptoms of cancer.

Download Alcohol and Cancer: A Guide for Health Professionals [pdf] here.

The updated guidance says approximately 6.5% of deaths in Scotland in 2015 were attributable to alcohol consumption, with more than one in four (28%) of these due to cancer. As identified by the Chief Medical Officer's (CMO) weekly guidelines, it highlights there is no safe level of alcohol consumption concerning cancer risks, statistics relating to alcohol's role in seven types of cancer and recent developments in understanding of the mechanisms of alcohol and cancer.

UK alcohol clinical guidelines to be developed

Public Health England (PHE) has announced it will lead the development of UK-wide clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment to support alcohol treatment practice.

The guidelines aim to develop a clear consensus on good practice and help services to implement interventions for harmful and dependent drinking as recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) CG115 guideline. The guideline will aim to promote and support consistent good practice and improve the quality of service provision, resulting in better outcomes.

The guidelines will provide:

Alcohol & marketing: IAS conference & report on gender stereotypes

This week the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS) held a conference on Alcohol & marketing: protecting the vulnerable with a range of presentations, audio , and animations available to download. 

The event featured presentations including Prof David Jernigan exploring 'Alcohol Marketing and Public Health – what do we know and what can we do?' and Dr Nathan Critchlow on 'Regulating alcohol marketing in the digital 'Wild West''. A presentation by Dr Amanda Atkinson explored alcohol marketing gender roles and stereotypes following the release of a new report reviewing the literature exploring the ways in which women are both targeted and represented in alcohol brand and nightlife marketing.

Alcohol duty cuts responsible for 2,000 deaths says SARG report

A new report explores the impact of cuts to alcohol duties made in recent years, estimating it may have led to as many as 2,000 deaths in England.

Download Modelling the impact of alcohol duty policies since 2012 in England and Scotland [pdf] or see SARG and IAS summary here.

Conducted by the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group (SARG) on behalf of the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS), the report estimates the scrapping the alcohol duty escalator has resulted in £341 million in additional costs to the NHS, and other costs such as half a million additional lost days of work at a cost to the economy of £62 million.

Findings bulletins: brief interventions implementation, improving mental health and SUD care, residential evidence & more

Recent bulletins from the Findings drug and alcohol bank:

Major trial of ways to extend brief alcohol interventions

Could combinations of three strategies – training and support, financial reimbursement, and the opportunity to refer patients to a website – effectively and cost-effectively boost delivery of brief alcohol interventions in five European countries, including England? The aim was to find the best way to narrow the gap in primary care between the number of patients who could benefit from these interventions and those who receive them. An important trial whose findings we analyse in depth, and for which we have updated our analysis of the cost-effectiveness findings.

What would better mental health and substance use care look like?

Further minimum pricing evidence: positive effects as predicted?

Two further pieces of evidence have been released indicating the early stage effects of minimum pricing in Scotland, including an analysis on consumer purchasing data and an NHS Health Scotland evaluation of the impact on alcohol retailers and purchasers. 

Published in the BMJ, an analysis of the immediate impact on alcohol purchases in Scotland utilised samples of household purchasing data including England as a control group. Amongst the findings, a fall in the purchasing of alcohol in Scotland was found such that it concluded MUP led to a 7.6% reduction in off-trade purchases in Scotland, equivalent to drop of 328 g (41 UK units) per adult per household per year. This may be seen as broadly in line with early MUP market research sales data released earlier this year by NHS Scotland showing a fall in consumption against a rise in England.

News & updates September 2019: MUP impacts, tax policy, Brexit, drugs, pubs & more

Selected media stories since the August update:

Minimum price 'cuts drinking by half a pint a week', according to a BBC headline following the release new data on Scotland's minimum unit pricing (MUP) introduced in 2016. While households in England increased their consumption slightly, Scottish purchasing was estimated to have fallen by 7.6% on average, equivalent to 1.2 units a week.

Meanwhile, the number of alcohol-related deaths in Glasgow fell by more than a fifth since MUP, reported ITV news. The figures were presented at the British Association for the Study of the Liver (BASL) conference in Glasgow based on data from the city's Alcohol and Drugs Partnership (ADP) and also reported by the BBC. The BBC also reported on a study to look at the impact of MUP on the homeless to be lead by Glasgow Caledonian University.