For as long as we can recall, we’ve, rightly talked about problem drinking and how to address it. It seems that maybe, after 20 years of measures targeting healthy and safe drinkers along with heavy and harmful ones, the world of alcohol policy is awakening and asking itself if targeted measures are, in fact, the answer to the long persistent problem of youth drinking.
In order to address problem drinking, and youth drinking included, we’ve been told for many years by the WHO, anti-alcohol NGOs, and many in the research community that reducing average per capita consumption was the way forward. The logic has been somewhat flawed from the outset, as reducing average consumption doesn’t necessarily reduce problem drinking at all.
Say, for example, we have one group of 10 people that each eat two sausages per day. And let’s say we have a second group in which one person eats 11 sausages per day while the rest eats one sausage per day. Each of the groups eats 20 sausages in total and an average of two sausages per person per day.
Now if we reduce average consumption of both groups by even a massive 50% to an average of one sausage per person per day our problem sausage eater still eats 5 and a half sausages per day, while everyone else is down to only half a sausage. But the average masks this problem, and the reduction in overall consumption has done little to address the problem eater. Apply this to alcohol consumption and it’s immediately apparent why average consumption could mean barking up the wrong tree.
If the average per capita consumption really were linked so closely to problem drinking, then underage drinking a) must have been twice as high in 1975 in Spain, France or Italy as it is today (which it wasn’t) and b) should be on a constant increase in Finland (which it isn’t). And if underage drinking were to be influenced primarily by population-based measures (such as restricting advertising or increasing prices), then we should see a declining trend only in those countries that actually did implement such measures, yet not (or less so) in those countries that did not – which is not the case.
Recent discussions at a KBS thematic meeting in Poland showed that the world of research might be waking up to the idea that problem consumption needs targeted, rather than population-based, efforts, discussing that youth drinking decline is potentially linked to parenting style, the digital revolution and more. So perhaps, education and targeted campaigns and interventions are having the impact that anti-alcohol activists have long claimed they wouldn’t. Perhaps they prove to be a much more effective spend from stretched national health budgets. And perhaps the WHO will see this and walk away from their one-sided push for population-based measures. But perhaps not.
While it is encouraging to see that the research community is now looking into alternative explanations to broad population-based policies, we should probably not expect activists to change track so quickly and endorse such measures, even if they seem to be working on problem drinking. In the meantime, one thing we can surely all celebrate is that youth drinking is on the decline.
