Alcohol Consumption in Southern Sweden after Major Decreases in Danish Spirits Taxes and Increases in Swedish Travellers’ Quotas

Abstract

Background: In 2003, Denmark lowered its tax on spirits, and in 2004, Sweden increased its traveller import quotas. Aim: The aim of the study was to determine whether these two changes increased self-reported alcohol consumption in southern Sweden, which is located near Denmark. Method: Data were collected through telephone interviews with the general population between 2003 and 2006. Individuals aged 16–80 years were interviewed. Some lived in southern Sweden, others in the northern region, which was assumed to be unaffected by the policy changes and was thus used as a control site. Analyses were performed for the total population as well as by sex, age, socio-economic group and consumption pattern. Results: The expected results were not found: alcohol consumption in southern Sweden had not changed. The few statistically significant changes found in southern Sweden indicated decreases. In the north, however, consumption seemed to have increased. Conclusion: In addition to the two policy changes mentioned above, other changes seem to have affected alcohol consumption in Sweden. It is possible, however, that the policy changes have affected population groups not reached by the survey, and thus other types of data need to be analysed before drawing any far-reaching conclusions.

What happened to alcohol consumption and problems in the Nordic countries when alcohol taxes were decreased and borders opened?

“…Neither the longitudinal study nor the repeated cross-sectional studies based on surveys showed any increase in average volume of consumption or in binge drinking for any country, or for any major subgroups within countries, in short or medium term, whether or not a comparison to northern Sweden was made (Grittner, Gustafsson, & Bloomfield, 2009;Gustafsson, 2010aGustafsson, , 2010bMustonen, Mäkelä, & Huhtanen, 2007). This basic conclusion was still the same after controlling for effects of regression to the mean (Ripatti & Mäkelä, 2008) and modelling the effects of dropouts (Grittner et al, 2011;Ripatti & Mäkelä, 2007).…”

What happens to drinking when alcohol policy changes? A review of five natural experiments for alcohol taxes, prices, and availability

“…Stafström [60] reports an increase in binge drinking by Swedish students, but a decline for intoxication. Organized by age group, the results indicate the following: (1) Denmark-binge drinking did not increase for any major adult subgroup [11] and drunkenness declined significantly among 15-year-old boys [29]; (2) Finland-no changes in adult bingeing using NTS data [11,50] or among youth [25,51], but selective increases among adults using other survey data [31]; (3) Hong Kong-decline in binge drinking among adults [13,33]; (4) Swedenyounger binge drinkers reduced alcohol use [11,43] and bingeing declined generally, with exceptions [42,41,60,61,59]; and (5) Switzerland-adult binge drinking changed little [27].…”

“…A variety of statistical methods are applied in primary studies, but a basic method is comparisons of before-after averages, with data divided into categories for age, gender, socioeconomic status, beverage, initial drinking-level or pattern, control site, and so forth. In some studies, hundreds of comparisons are possible [43,34]. In what follows, we first organize results by country, and present within-country summaries for drinking and drinking patterns.…”

“…In 14 of 18 studies, we judge results to be largely negative or null-alcohol policy interventions that reduced prices and increased availability had little or no positive effect on binge drinking and drunkenness. Listed by country, these 14 studies are: Denmark [11,29]; Finland [11,25,51,50]; Hong Kong [13,33]; Sweden [11,43,41,61,59]; and Switzerland [27]. Four remaining studies report mixed results.…”

Knowledge production, communication and utilization: studying biomedical alcohol research

“…This provides a central motive for studying biomedical alcohol research in more detail, both in Sweden and in other countries i . In general, social research on alcohol policy is concerned with studying specific aspects of policy, such as analysing how control policies affect drinking and alcohol problems in specific population groups (e.g., Paschall et al, 2009), countries (e.g., Bloomfield et al, 2010), or parts of a country (e.g., Gustafsson, 2010), or studying one country's position in international policy-making (for Sweden, see Cisneros Örnberg, 2009). Whereas the liberalization of alcohol policy has been the topic for discussion in several studies (e.g., Johansson, 2008;Olsson, 2000;Sulkunen, 2000), biomedical alcohol research has received little attention.…”