Alcohol Action Ireland publications

• Alcohol in Ireland; finding the right measure; pre budget submission 2012 details how cheap alcohol costs an estimated €3.7 billion a year and outlines two key policy actions that can reduce these costs.

• Alcohol in Ireland: Tackling the Financial Hangover: Pre Budget Submission 2011 and the case for minimum pricing details how alcohol-related damage is costing each taxpayer €3,318 a year in alcohol-related health and crime costs and puts forward evidence-based policy solutions that will help reduce the levels of alcohol-related harm in the country

Alcohol and Costs

• Alcohol-related problems cost Ireland an estimated €3.7 billion in 2007, according to the HSE’s report Costs to Society of Problem Alcohol Use in Ireland. Treating alcohol-related injuries and diseases cost the healthcare system an estimated €1.2 billion - around a tenth of the total annual healthcare budget. Meanwhile, an estimated €1.2 billion of tax payers’ money is spent on dealing with alcohol-related crime including violence and vandalism

Children Affected by Harmful Parental Drinking

• The key findings and proceedings of the first national conference addressing the impact of parental substance misuse on children are summarised in the conference report, A Family Affair? Supporting children living with parental substance misuse.

• Parental Substance Misuse; Addressing Its Impact On Children; a review of the literature examines how parental substance misuse undermines the potential of families, with negative, long term effects for a substantial minority of children. A summary of the key messages can be downloaded by clicking  here.

• Bottling It Up - The Next Generation details how alcohol misuse in families is an escalating concern with early screening and identification of families urgently needed to protect and support children now and to prevent the inter-generational cycle of alcohol misuse.

• The 2010 ISPCC National Children’s Consultation surveyed 9,746 young Irish people between the ages of 12-18 about their own and their parent’s alcohol use. One in 11 children surveyed said their parents’ alcohol use has a negative impact on their lives. This amounts to more than 100,000 children

• The 2009 Alcohol Action Ireland Keeping it in the family survey was the first ever national research survey carried out among adults to gauge their experiences of parental alcohol use during their childhood. One in 14 adults surveyed said they frequently felt afraid or unsafe as children as a result of their parent’s drinking, with one in 12 reporting witnessing alcohol-related parental conflict

• The 2010 Swept under the carpet report by Alcohol Concern and The Children’s Society in the UK highlights the significant impact on children of parental alcohol misuse. It finds that an estimated 2.6 million children live with a parent whose drinking puts them at risk of neglect, and 705,000 live with a dependent drinker. The paper makes recommendations on actions needed to support children and families affected by harmful parental drinking

• A recent Scottish study shows that many of those negatively affected by some-one else’s drinking are children and reveals that a high number of callers to ChildLine Scotland are children concerned about their parents drinking. The 2009 Untold Damage: Children’s Accounts of Living with Harmful Parental Drinking study describes childhoods impacted by severe emotional distress, neglect, and increased risk of physical violence and abuse as a result of harmful parental drinking

• The Northern Ireland Hidden Harm Action Plan puts policy into action, detailing the region’s response to the needs of children affected by parental alcohol and drug problems. The Plan details what needs to happen to ensure that children and young people receiving compromised parenting as a result of parental alcohol and/or drug problems, can receive the support they need to reduce harm now and assure their health and well-being for the future.

Marketing Alcohol

• A report from Alcohol Concern Cymru entitled “Making an impression” shows that children as young as 10-years-old in Wales are more familiar with some leading alcohol brands and adverts than those for popular foods and snacks, demonstrating that alcohol marketing messages are reaching children many years before they are of legal age to buy alcohol.
• The World Health Organisation has called for a total ban on alcohol advertising in Europe - but what are the legal possibilities of a comprehensive alcohol advertising ban in the region? Click here to find out.
• How effective are alcohol marketing regulations in Europe? Click here to see an analysis of which European countries have the best and worst regulation.
• Alcohol Action Ireland’s 2010 Have We Bottled It? Alcohol Marketing and Young People survey reveals that young people are being exposed to alcohol brands from a young age. Among 16 to 21-year-olds, alcohol ads represented five out of their top ten favourite ads. Among the younger 16 to 17 year old age group, one in three said they had seen an ad or pop-up for an alcohol product on their social networking page, while one in five said they had received an online quiz about alcohol or drinking
• Millions of children were exposed to alcohol promotion during the World Cup 2010 despite advertising regulations to protect children from alcohol marketing, according to Alcohol Concern’s report Overexposed – Alcohol marketing during the World Cup 2010 (Alcohol Concern, 2010)
  
• The 2009 British Medical Association report Under the Influence - the Damaging Effect of Alcohol Marketing on Young People (British Medical Association. 2009) examines the powerful and damaging effect of alcohol marketing communications on children and young people, the forms that alcohol marketing takes, and its cumulative effect in reinforcing and exaggerating strong pro-alcohol social norms
• The National Youth Council of Ireland’s 2009 Get’Em Young report revealed that young people are exposed to alcohol marketing through at least 16 communication channels on a regular basis.  These include TV, magazines and newspapers, internet, street flyers, billboards, post, radio, cinema, merchandise, music, sports stadiums and bus
• The Science Group of the European Alcohol and Health Forum found consistent evidence to demonstrate an impact of alcohol advertising on the uptake of drinking among non-drinking young people, and increased consumption among their drinking peers. See the report here: Scientific opinion on Marketing Communication (European Alcohol and Health Forum, 2009)
• The Report of the Working Group on Sports Sponsorship by the Alcohol Industry looks the question of alcohol sports sponsorship in Ireland with a view to phasing it out

Alcohol, Health and Harm

• The Steering Group Report on a National Substance Misuse Strategy, released in February, has created a comprehensive set of recommendations that if implemented will go a considerable way to protecting the health and wellbeing of children, young people and families in communities across Ireland.
• The Report On The Misuse of Alcohol and Other Drugs was launched by the Joint Committee on Health and Children in 2012. The majority of the Committee members support the introduction of minimum pricing and recommend measures on alcohol availability and marketing, including marketing on social networking sites. Click here to download the report
• Alcohol-related deaths rose in Ireland over a five year period between 2004 and 2008. In the first study of its kind in Ireland, the Health Research Board paper (Alcohol-related deaths and deaths among people who were alcohol dependent in Ireland 2004-2008) shows that alcoholic liver disease made up almost one in six of the 4,332 alcohol-related deaths in this period
• The rate of hospital discharges for alcoholic liver disease in the 15-34 year age group increased by 247% between 1995 and 2007 in Ireland. This period coincided with record levels of alcohol consumption. Click here to read more
• Almost three-quarters of the adult Australian population report being affected by someone else’s drinking in the last year, according to the Alcohol’s Harm to Others report, which details the impacts from the drinking of others. It also found that over a third of people who reported being negatively affected by the drinking of someone they knew had to stop seeing that person because of their drinking
• One in 10 cancers in men and one in 33 in women across Western Europe are caused by drinking, according to new research. While even small amounts increases the risk, drinking above recommended limits causes the majority of cancer cases linked to alcohol, experts said. And even former drinkers who have now quit are still at risk of cancer, including of the oesophagus, breast, mouth and bowel. The new research Alcohol and Cancer published in the British Medical Journal , found cancer risks at even lower levels
  
• Alcohol causes nearly 4 percent of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or violence, according to the World Health Organisation. It’s 2011 Global status report on alcohol and health says that approximately 2.5 million people die each year from alcohol related causes.  Yet alcohol control policies are weak and remain a low priority for most governments despite drinking’s heavy toll on society from road accidents, violence, disease, child neglect and job absenteeism, it said

• The 2009 Health Research Board report Social Consequences of Harmful Use of Alcohol in Ireland paints a grim picture of the increasingly negative role played by alcohol in Irish society. It finds that the high level of alcohol-related social harm does not bode well for the future health and well-being of the Irish population

• Alcohol is associated with a range of chronic and acute medical conditions, including liver cirrhosis, various cancers, road traffic accidents and suicide. The 2009 Health Research Board report Health-Related Consequences of Problem Alcohol Use makes a number of recommendations about what is needed in Ireland to reduce the health-related consequences of alcohol consumption

• A 2008 report on Alcohol Related Harm in Ireland by Dr Ann Hope documents the extent and nature of alcohol harms to both to the drinker and to those affected by the drinker

How much do we drink?

• The average amount drunk in Ireland is 15th highest worldwide. Figures published by the World Health Organisation (Ireland report- Global status report on alcohol and health (WHO, 2011) disclose that the average Irish person drinks more 14.4 litres of pure alcohol a year - higher than the European average

• More than half of Irish adults report a harmful drinking pattern - that’s 7 in 10 men and 4 in 10 women who drink. The Survey of Lifestyle, Attitude and Nutrition (SLÁN) Report on Alcohol contains the most up to date data on Irish drinking patterns

• Alcohol consumption per head of population showed an increase of 48% over the twenty year period 1986-2006.The Alcohol Consumption in Ireland 1986-2006 (HSE, 2007) report shows that overall alcohol consumption fell for the first time in 16 years in Ireland following an increase in excise duty on sprits in 2002
• The prevalence of frequent binge drinking is highest in Ireland (44%), according to the 2010 Eurobarometre report EU citizens’ attitudes towards alcohol

• Over half (54%) of 15 and 16-year-olds in Ireland reported being drunk at some time in their lives, according to the most recent survey of drinking among European 15 and 16-year-olds.  The European Schools Project for Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) survey takes place every four years in 35 European countries. The goal of the ESPAD survey is to monitor trends in alcohol and other drug use among 15 and 16-year-olds. The most recent survey took place in 2007
• Read the survey’s  Executive Summary (Dept of Health&Children, 2009)

Alcohol and Affordability in Ireland

• Alcohol in Ireland is 50% more affordable than it was in 1996, according to the 2009 RAND report. The report, commissioned by DG SANCO (European Commission’s Department of Health) for the European Alcohol and Health Forum, makes the link between alcohol affordability, consumption and harms
• Alcohol Action Ireland’s 2010 Have We Bottled It? Alcohol Marketing and Young People survey revealed that two out of three Irish adults back a minimum price for alcohol, a floor price below which alcohol cannot be sold, while almost half of people said they would buy less alcohol if the price were to increase by just 10%
  

Alcohol and Women

• Information about woman and alcohol is now available in Alcohol Action Ireland’s new leaflet Women & alcohol: Making the drink link

• The HSE Little Book of women and alcohol lists the effects of alcohol use on women

• The Coombe Women’s Hospital Study of Alcohol, Smoking and Illicit Drug Use 1987-2005 (2007) found that almost two-thirds (63%) of the 43,318 women surveyed said they drank alcohol during their pregnancy

Alcohol, Mental Health and Suicide

• NEW: The My World Survey: The largest research project on youth mental health in Ireland hjas found that 61% of young adults were drinking outside the normal range of drinking behaviour as measured by WHO, while depression and anxiety were significantly higher among those who were engaged in harmful drinking or who were classed as possibly alcohol dependent.
• The Suicide in Ireland_the Influence of Alcohol and Unemployment study found that alcohol consumption is a significant influence on the suicide rate among younger males and suggests that heavier taxation of alcohol could play a role in reducing the suicide rate among young men

• Deaths from suicide exceeds those from road traffic accidents by as many as 100 people each year, according to An Oireachtas report on The High Level of Suicide in Irish Society (Oireachtas Report, 2006)

• Reports, presentations and research on suicide and deliberate self harm, as well as ‘Reach Out: The Irish National Strategy for Action on Suicide Prevention 2005-2014′ are available from the National Office for Suicide Prevention at www.nosp.ie

• The UK Mental Health Foundation has published a report called Cheers? Understanding the Relationship between Alcohol and Mental Health Executive Summary (UK Mental Health Foundation, 2006)

• The National Suicide Research Foundation publish a National Registry of Deliberate Self Harm. It’s 2009 Annual Report shows 41% of all deliberate self harm presentations involve alcohol

Strategies to Reduce Harmful Alcohol Use

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has released Government guidance on alcohol regulation: Addressing the harmful use of alcohol - a guide to developing effective alcohol regulation. The guide is to ‘assist government agencies and ministries in developing country-level legislation to implement, monitor and enforce effective alcohol policies’. It provides ‘practical advice based on international experience about the implications of legislative options, steps to be taken to implement legislation and best practice on how to enforce legislation and support compliance’.
• The World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe published its Handbook for action to reduce alcohol-related harm in 2009. The handbook sets out the infrastructure needed for an effective plan on alcohol. It is designed primarily for use at national and regional level in the development of strategies and action plans to reduce alcohol-related harm
  

• The World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe published a review of Evidence for the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm in 2009

• The Scottish Government published its framework for tackling Scotland’s £2.25 billion alcohol misuse problem, regarded by health experts as Scotland’s most pressing public health concern. Click here to view Changing Scotland’s Relationship with Alcohol: a Framework for Action.Scottish Government (2009)
  

• The EU strategy to support Member States in reducing alcohol related harm accross Member States was adopted in October 2006
  
  
• The first progress report on the implementation of the EU strategy to support Member States in reducing alcohol related harm (Published Sept 2009) was published in September 2009

Services, Treatment and Early Intervention

• The report on treated problem alcohol use in Ireland 2005-2010 found that the number of cases rose by 43% in the period examined.
  

• Alcohol Action Ireland’s Position Paper on Alcohol Treatment Systems and Services outlines that there is a compelling need to develop a comprehensive treatment system for those with alcohol problems

Drink Driving

• The relative risk of a fatal crash is 4 - 10 times higher for drivers with BACs between 50-79mg% risk compare to drivers with BACs of zero, according to Dr Declan Bedford’s findings on Drink Driving in Ireland presented to the Road Safety Authority conference in October 2008
• Read the RSA’s Road Safety Strategy 2007 - 2012