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An avalanche of alcohol ads is coming, and there’s little protection for children
How does it affect young people?
The report distils evidence from 30 years of research involving tens of thousands of young people showing that greater exposure to alcohol advertising and sponsorship leads to earlier alcohol initiation, and more harmful drinking. In short, there's a dose response.
According to report co-author Professor O’Brien, “sport is the leading single entertainment genre for marketing alcohol to children and young people, and research shows advertising and sponsorship in sport is highly effective in influencing children and young people’s attitudes toward alcohol, and their drinking”.
While the impacts on health from allowing exposure to alcohol marketing and sponsorship are quite clear, the impact of preventing exposure is equally clear. In countries with strong laws and regulations to restrict alcohol marketing, there are lower rates of harmful alcohol use.
The public health rationale for protecting children and young people from alcohol advertising is simple, but often ignored. Drinking at a young age poses short-term risks to their health (for example, injury, and accidental death), as well as serious long-term consequences (such as brain damage and developmental problems).
Tobacco advertising was banned in Australia decades ago, but alcohol advertising has continued unfettered.
Australian children’s exposure to alcohol advertising through online and digital media is rapidly increasing, but exposure remains highest through traditional media such as television, and sport sponsorship.
The pandemic has shown us the importance of clean environments when it comes to infectious disease, but what about healthy environments to prevent NCDs? The return of the NRL saw XXXX cardboard spectators (above a gambling ad no less). We need to end alcohol advertising in sport.
In a single year, Australia’s children and adolescents experience more than 50 million exposures to alcohol advertising through telecasts of the three major national sporting codes (AFL, NRL, cricket). Alcohol advertisements within these three sports represent 60 per cent of all alcohol advertising in televised sport.
How can Australia protect young people from alcohol advertising?
Australia urgently needs stronger restrictions on alcohol advertising and sponsorship to protect children and young people. Internationally, our regulatory controls on alcohol marketing are among the weakest.
The majority of Australians (approximately 70 per cent), and particularly parents (80 per cent), support stronger restrictions on alcohol advertising and sponsorship. Hence, policymakers should anticipate a substantial amount of public support if stronger restrictions were implemented.
The evidence base suggests that there are several effective ways for protecting children and young people from exposure to alcohol advertising, two of which stand out as the most obvious and practical next steps for Australia.
First, we need bans on TV alcohol advertising at times when children are known to be watching, especially during sports programs, where alcohol ads are currently permitted at any time on weekends (including Friday evenings).
Second, we need to get alcohol sponsorship out of sport. There are good examples to follow from other countries (such as France and Ireland), as well as Australia’s own success in removing tobacco sponsorship from sport.
Our Chair, @carol_fawsitt addresses @GAPCDUBLIN2020 and asks all delegates to ‘put children at the centre of all public health policies devised to counter the harm caused by alcohol.’ #gapc2020
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It’s a well-established fact that Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and many other twelve-step programs based on AA, are successful. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be over 2 million AA members worldwide. Joining is free and as simple as showing up. It’s a wonderful program for recovering alcoholics, and it’s a brilliant option for those with limited resources, unable to enter into a professional treatment program or receive professional aftercare.
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First published: 27 February 2020
Abstract:
Background and aims: In February 2014, pubs and bars in Kings Cross (KX) and the central business district (CBD) of Sydney, Australia were required to stop serving alcohol by 3 a.m. and operate a ‘lockout’ from 1.30 a.m. We studied changes in the incidence of assault during the following 5 years, including possible displacement.
Measurements: We compared change in non‐domestic assault in KX and the CBD with adjacent areas, other city areas, and outer suburbs, adjusting for the trend in the rest of the state during three periods: 6 p.m.–1.29 a.m. (‘pre‐lockout’), 1.30 a.m.–2.59 a.m. (‘lockout’) and 3 a.m.–6 a.m. (‘after last‐drinks’). We constructed interrupted time‐series models with terms for secular trend and season, producing incidence rate ratios (IRR) for step and slope parameters. We performed sensitivity analyses on impacts of missing location data.
Findings: After the intervention, assaults fell 38% in KX (IRR for step change = 0.62, 95% CI = 0.49, 0.79) and 10% in the CBD (IRR = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.80, 0.99). Assaults continued declining in KX (IRR for slope = 0.990, 95% CI = 0.982, 0.998) and later increased in adjacent areas (IRR for slope = 1.006, 95% CI = 1.001, 1.011) and earlier in the evenings in both KX and the adjacent areas. The net reduction was 627 assaults over 60 months post‐intervention, i.e. 10 fewer per month. Estimates were robust to extreme assumptions about missing data.
Conclusions: The 2014 alcohol supply restrictions for pubs and bars in Kings Cross (KX) and the central business district (CBD) of Sydney, Australia were followed by a substantial reduction in the incidence of assault in KX and to a lesser extent in the CBD, possibly displacing some cases to adjacent areas and earlier in the evening
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Alcohol sales have spiked during the past month. It has long been acknowledged that Scotland has an ‘unhealthy relationship with alcohol’. Too much drinking carries with it heavy personal, economic, health and societal costs. The combination of being home-bound, feeling extraordinary stress or fear, as well as the cultural tendency to turn to both sex and alcohol for comfort and relief makes increasingly risky behaviour a near certainty.
One example of predictable ‘collateral damage’ from the current pandemic will be a significant rise in the cases of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) across Scotland.
Alcohol exposure in utero is the world’s leading cause of neurodevelopmental (brain and nervous system) damage, learning disabilities and behavioural problems. FASD cannot be cured, reversed or outgrown, as it permanently compromises lives and life chances, e.g. by school failure, substance abuse, as well as being troubled and in trouble.
In fact, FASD is invisible in 90 per cent of the people affected and can be difficult to confirm, which means it is often misdiagnosed or simply overlooked – for instance, while the Scottish Government estimates that approximately 172,000 children, young and adults across Scotland are currently affected, there are between 500 and 1,000 undiagnosed FASD cases for every one officially confirmed.
There is no risk-free time during pregnancy, no safe type of alcohol or risk-free amount - which is why all four UK Chief Medical Officers advise that no alcohol should be consumed during pregnancy or if likely to conceive (including in the weeks/months before pregnancy is confirmed). Yet FASD is preventable in either of two ways: by not drinking during pregnancy - or by not getting pregnant while continuing to drink.
Is anything being said - or, better still, being done - to help prevent this specific ‘collateral damage’? Since most people are riveted on new information about what can be done to avoid harm during this pandemic, there is a great opportunity in this moment to prevent FASD.
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