Developing cancer warning statements for alcoholic beverages

Abstract

BackgroundThere is growing evidence of the increased cancer risk associated with alcohol consumption, but this is not well understood by the general public. This study investigated the acceptability among drinkers of cancer warning statements for alcoholic beverages.MethodsSix focus groups were conducted with Australian drinkers to develop a series of cancer-related warning statements for alcohol products. Eleven cancer warning statements and one general health warning statement were subsequently tested on 2,168 drinkers via an online survey. The statements varied by message frame (positive vs negative), cancer reference (general vs specific), and the way causality was communicated (‘increases risk of cancer’ vs ‘can cause cancer’).ResultsOverall, responses to the cancer statements were neutral to favorable, indicating that they are unlikely to encounter high levels of negative reaction from the community if introduced on alcoholic beverages. Females, younger respondents, and those with higher levels of education generally found the statements to be more believable, convincing, and personally relevant. Positively framed messages, those referring to specific forms of cancer, and those using ‘increases risk of cancer’ performed better than negatively framed messages, those referring to cancer in general, and those using the term ‘can cause cancer’.ConclusionCancer warning statements on alcoholic beverages constitute a potential means of increasing awareness about the relationship between alcohol consumption and cancer risk.

Image-and-text health warning labels on alcohol and food: potential effectiveness and acceptability

“…A recent study found high acceptability for the implementation of image-and-text HWLs for both alcohol and food [26], but respondents were not shown examples of the warnings. A small number of studies suggest that text-only HWLs are generally accepted for both alcohol [29] and SSBs [30] but image-and-text HWLs could plausibly be less acceptable due to their graphic nature. While studies have investigated the acceptability of drinks displaying image-and-text HWLs [14] to our knowledge no studies have investigated the acceptability of the labels themselves in the context of alcohol.…”

Warning labels on junk food: experimental evidence

“…Instead, previous studies on alcohol warning labels do not report significant behavioural effects (Andrews, 1995;Hilton, 1993;Greenfield et al, 1999;MacKinnon et al, 2001). However, Pettigrew et al (2014) found that claims concerning the cancer risks that are associated with alcohol increased awareness among Australian alcohol consumers.…”

“…However, Pettigrew et al . () found that claims concerning the cancer risks that are associated with alcohol increased awareness among Australian alcohol consumers.…”

Strong epidemiological evidence that alcohol causes cancer, but how might the public interpret this information?

“…First, candidacy only indicates increased risk—not an inevitable outcome–so a message which emphasizes certainty rather than probability may be disregarded. Research investigating the acceptability of cancer warning messages among Australian drinkers suggests that statements about alcohol leading to an ‘increased risk of cancer’ performed better than those which stated that alcohol ‘can cause cancer’.…”