The International Alcohol Control (IAC) Study—Evaluating the Impact of Alcohol Policies

Casswell, Sally; Meier, Petra; MacKintosh, Anne Marie; Brown, Abraham; Hastings, Gerard; Thamarangsi, Thaksaphon; Chaiyasong, Surasak; Chun, Sungsoo; Huckle, Taisia; Wall, Martin; You, Ru Quan

doi:10.1111/j.1530-0277.2012.01738.x

Cited by 67 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…APISE is the UK arm of the International Alcohol Control Study, an international collaboration examining the effectiveness of alcohol control policies via survey data and cross-country comparative analyses (Casswell et al., 2012). Ethical approval for the telephone survey and focus groups was granted by the Universities of Stirling and Sheffield.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public attitudes towards alcohol control policies in Scotland and England: Results from a mixed-methods study

Lovatt

Eadie

et al. 2017

Social Science & Medicine

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The harmful effects of heavy drinking on health have been widely reported, yet public opinion on governmental responsibility for alcohol control remains divided. This study examines UK public attitudes towards alcohol policies, identifies underlying dimensions that inform these, and relationships with perceived effectiveness. A cross-sectional mixed methods study involving a telephone survey of 3477 adult drinkers aged 16–65 and sixteen focus groups with 89 adult drinkers in Scotland and England was conducted between September 2012 and February 2013. Principal components analysis (PCA) was used to reduce twelve policy statements into underlying dimensions. These dimensions were used in linear regression models examining alcohol policy support by demographics, drinking behaviour and perceptions of UK drinking and government responsibility. Findings were supplemented with a thematic analysis of focus group transcripts. A majority of survey respondents supported all alcohol policies, although the level of support varied by type of policy. Greater enforcement of laws on under-age sales and more police patrolling the streets were strongly supported while support for pricing policies and restricting access to alcohol was more divided. PCA identified four main dimensions underlying support on policies: alcohol availability, provision of health information and treatment services, alcohol pricing, and greater law enforcement. Being female, older, a moderate drinker, and holding a belief that government should do more to reduce alcohol harms were associated with higher support on all policy dimensions. Focus group data revealed findings from the survey may have presented an overly positive level of support on all policies due to differences in perceived policy effectiveness. Perceived effectiveness can help inform underlying patterns of policy support and should be considered in conjunction with standard measures of support in future research on alcohol control policies.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public attitudes towards alcohol control policies in Scotland and England: Results from a mixed-methods study

Lovatt

Eadie

et al. 2017

Social Science & Medicine

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“…Participants were asked whether they smoked or had smoked cigarettes (including hand‐rolled) daily or non‐daily during the past year and to complete the AUDIT 38. The AUDIT identifies people who could be classed as dependent, harmful or hazardous drinkers and has demonstrated validity, high internal consistency and good test–retest reliability across gender, age and cultures 39, 40, 41, 42.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association between smoking and alcohol‐related behaviours: a time–series analysis of population trends in England

et al. 2017

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AimsThis paper estimates how far monthly changes in prevalence of cigarette smoking, motivation to quit and attempts to stop smoking have been associated with changes in prevalence of high‐risk drinking, and motivation and attempts to reduce alcohol consumption in England.DesignData were used from the Alcohol and Smoking Toolkit Studies between April 2014 and June 2016. These involve monthly household face‐to‐face surveys of representative samples of ~1700 adults in England.MeasurementsAutoregressive Integrated Moving Average with Exogeneous Input (ARIMAX) modelling was used to assess the association over time between monthly prevalence of (a) smoking and high‐risk drinking; (b) high motivation to quit smoking and high motivation to reduce alcohol consumption; and (c) attempts to quit smoking and attempts to reduce alcohol consumption.FindingsMean smoking prevalence over the study period was 18.6% and high‐risk drinking prevalence was 13.0%. A decrease of 1% of the series mean smoking prevalence was associated with a reduction of 0.185% of the mean prevalence of high‐risk drinking 2 months later [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.033 to 0.337, P = 0.017]. A statistically significant association was not found between prevalence of high motivation to quit smoking and high motivation to reduce alcohol consumption (β = 0.324, 95% CI = –0.371 to 1.019, P = 0.360) or prevalence of attempts to quit smoking and attempts to reduce alcohol consumption (β = −0.026, 95% CI = –1.348 to 1.296, P = 0.969).ConclusionBetween 2014 and 2016, monthly changes in prevalence of smoking in England were associated positively with prevalence of high‐risk drinking. There was no significant association between motivation to stop and motivation to reduce alcohol consumption, or attempts to quit smoking and attempts to reduce alcohol consumption.

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“…High-risk (excessive) alcohol consumption was defined as a score of 8 or more (7 or more in women) on the full AUDIT. [42][43][44] ANALYSIS Data were analysed in R V.3.3.0 (R Development Core Team. R: a language and environment for statistical computing.…”

Section: Study Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Healthier central England or North–South divide? Analysis of national survey data on smoking and high-risk drinking

et al. 2017

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ObjectivesThis paper compares patterns of smoking and high-risk alcohol use across regions in England, and assesses the impact on these of adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics.DesignPopulation survey of 53 922 adults in England aged 16+ taking part in the Alcohol and Smoking Toolkit Studies.MeasuresParticipants answered questions regarding their socioeconomic status (SES), gender, age, ethnicity, Government Office Region, smoking status and completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). High-risk drinkers were defined as those with a score of 8 or more (7 or more for women) on the AUDIT.ResultsIn unadjusted analyses, relative to the South West, those in the North of England were more likely to smoke, while those from the East of England, South East and London were less likely. After adjustment for sociodemographics, smoking prevalence was no higher in North East (RR 0.97, p>0.05), North West (RR 0.98, p>0.05) or Yorkshire and the Humber (RR 1.03, p>0.05) but was less common in the East and West Midlands (RR 0.86, p<0.001; RR 0.91, p<0.05), East of England (RR 0.86, p<0.001), South East (RR 0.92, p<0.05) and London (RR 0.85, p<0.001). High-risk drinking was more common in the North but was less common in the Midlands, London and East of England. Adjustment for sociodemographics had little effect. There was a higher prevalence in the North East (RR 1.67, p<0.001), North West (RR 1.42, p<0.001) and Yorkshire and the Humber (RR 1.35, p<0.001); lower prevalence in the East Midlands (RR 0.69, p<0.001), West Midlands (RR 0.77, p<0.001), East of England (RR 0.72, p<0.001) and London (RR 0.71, p<0.001); and a similar prevalence in the South East (RR 1.10, p>0.05)ConclusionsIn adjusted analyses, smoking and high-risk drinking appear less common in ‘central England’ than in the rest of the country. Regional differences in smoking, but not those in high-risk drinking, appear to be explained to some extent by sociodemographic disparities.

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The International Alcohol Control (IAC) Study—Evaluating the Impact of Alcohol Policies

Abstract: In a policy arena in which the interest groups and stakeholders have different perceptions of appropriate policy responses to alcohol-related harm, a robust methodology to assess the impact of policy will contribute to the debate.

Cited by 67 publications

References 24 publications

Public attitudes towards alcohol control policies in Scotland and England: Results from a mixed-methods study

Public attitudes towards alcohol control policies in Scotland and England: Results from a mixed-methods study

Association between smoking and alcohol‐related behaviours: a time–series analysis of population trends in England

Healthier central England or North–South divide? Analysis of national survey data on smoking and high-risk drinking

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