Prohibiting public drinking in an urban area: determining the impacts on police, the community and marginalised groups

With public drinking laws proliferating across urban areas over the past 15 years, this project evaluated the implementation of these laws, their effectiveness, and their impact on a range of target groups including police, residents, traders, local health and welfare workers, and potentially marginalised groups. Overview Public drinking laws have proliferated across urban areas over the past 15 years; however, there have been very few evaluations of their impacts and effectiveness. The purpose of this project was to evaluate public drinking laws across three diverse inner-urban local government areas (LGAs) of Melbourne: the Cities of Yarra, Darebin and Maribyrnong. The objectives of this project were to evaluate the implementation of public drinking laws, the effectiveness of these laws and the impact of these laws on a range of target groups including police, residents, traders, local health and welfare workers, and potentially marginalised groups. The evaluation produced equivocal findings in relation to whether public drinking laws reduced congregations of drinkers (with differing findings across municipalities) and there was no evidence that these laws reduced alcohol-related crime or harm. However, public drinking laws do make residents feel safer and improve the amenity of an area from the perspective of residents and traders. The evaluation found that public drinking laws often result in negative impacts to marginalised individuals and this requires more consideration in the implementation and enforcement of these laws. It is important that public drinking laws are carefully considered, implemented and enforced (with local council officers and police liaising collaboratively to respond to the needs of the individual community) and are coupled with community-specific social inclusion strategies

Youth drinking in decline: What are the implications for public health, public policy and public debate?

Youth drinking has declined across most high-income countries in the last 20 years. Although researchers and commentators have explored the nature and drivers of decline, they have paid less attention to its implications. This matters because of the potential impact on contemporary and future public health, as well as on alcohol policy-making. This commentary therefore considers how youth drinking trends may develop in future, what this would mean for public health, and what it might mean for alcohol policy and debate. We argue that the decline in youth drinking is well-established and unlikely to reverse, despite smaller declines and stabilising trends in recent years. Young people also appear to be carrying their lighter drinking into adulthood in at least some countries. This suggests we should expect large short- and long-term public health benefits. The latter may however be obscured in population-level data by increased harm arising from earlier, heavier drinking generations moving through the highest risk points in the life course. The likely impact of the decline in youth drinking on public and policy debate is less clear. We explore the possibilities using two model scenarios, the reinforcement and withdrawal models. In the reinforcement model, a ‘virtuous’ circle of falling alcohol consumption, increasing public support for alcohol control policies and apparent policy successes facilitates progressive strengthening of policy, akin to that seen in the tobacco experience. In the withdrawal model, policy-makers turn their attention to other problems, public health advocates struggle to justify proposed interventions and existing policies erode over time as industry actors reassert and strengthen their partnerships with government around alcohol policy. We argue that disconnects between the tobacco experience and the reinforcement model make the withdrawal model a more plausible scenario. We conclude by suggesting some tentative ways forward for public health actors working in this space

Patterns in reduction or cessation of drinking in Australia (2001-2013) and motivation for change

Aims: This paper examines: 1) change over time (2001-2013) in recently reducing or ceasing drinking in the Australian population, and 2) the reasons given for reducing or ceasing drinking in the most recent survey (2013); stratified by sex and age group. Methods: Data are from five waves of the National Drug Strategy Household Survey (N=119,397). Logistic regression models with interaction terms were used to identify a shift in sex or age over time in predicting reduction or cessation of drinking, and to predict motivations for reducing or ceasing drinking by sex and age. Results: Reports of recently reducing the quantity or frequency of drinking increased from 2001 to 2007, and remained stable between 2007 and 2013. There was a steady increase in the number of Australians reporting recently ceasing drinking from 2001 to 2013, with a significant effect for age (younger groups more likely than older groups to cease drinking in the past two waves). Reasons for reducing or ceasing drinking varied by age, with older people more likely to report health reasons, and younger people more likely to report lifestyle reasons or enjoyment. Conclusion: Increases over time in reports of reduction or cessation of drinking due to health, lifestyle, social and enjoyment reasons, suggests that the social position of alcohol in Australia may be shifting, particularly among young people

Response to commentaries: (de)normalization of drinking and its implications for young people, sociality, culture and epidemiology

Commentar

Why is adolescent drinking declining? A systematic review and narrative synthesis

Background: Adolescent drinking has declined across many developed countries from the turn of the century. The aim of this review is to explore existing evidence examining possible reasons for this decline. Methods: We conducted systematic searches across five databases: Medline, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Informit Health and Scopus. Studies were included if association between declining alcohol consumption and potential explanatory factors were measured over time. Narrative synthesis was undertaken due to substantial methodological heterogeneity in these studies. Results: 17 studies met the inclusion criteria. Five studies found moderate evidence for changes in parental practices as a potential cause for the decline. Five studies that examined whether alcohol policy changes influenced the decline found weak evidence of association. Three studies explored whether alcohol use has been substituted by illicit substances but no evidence was found. Two studies examined the effect of a weaker economy; both identified increase in adolescent alcohol use during times of economic crisis. One study indicated that changes in exposure to alcohol advertising were positively associated with the decline and another examined the role of immigration of non-drinking populations but found no evidence of association. One study tested participation in organised sports and party lifestyle as a potential cause but did not use robust analytical methods and therefore did not provide strong evidence of association for the decline. Conclusions: The most robust and consistent evidence was identified for shifts in parental practices. Further research is required using robust analytical methods such as ARIMA modelling techniques and utilising cross-national data

Supranational changes in drinking patterns: factors in explanatory models of substantial and parallel social change

Background: That there have been ‘long waves’ of consumption in parallel in different societies has previously been noted. Now there is a sustained drop in drinking among youth in most of Europe, Australia and North America. Can such changes be understood in a common frame? In terms of inexorable historical phenomena or forces, like Kondratieff waves? In terms of generational shifts, with a younger generation reacting against the habits of an older? Method: Such conceptual models for understanding the dynamics of social change are examined in terms of their potential contribution in explaining when and how substantial changes in levels of consumption occur roughly in concert in different societies, with particular reference to the decline in drinking and heavy drinking in current youth cohorts. Results and Conclusion: Timing tends to rule out economic change as a factor in the current widespread decline in youth drinking. The technological revolution of the electronic web and the smart phone seems a primary explanation, with the widespread change in social presentation and interaction — in habitus — between parents and children also involved. Directions for further research are suggested

Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities

AimComprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroecology. We provide global range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species harmonised to the taxonomy of the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) mobilised from two sources, the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW) and the Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World (CMW).LocationGlobal.TaxonAll extant mammal species.MethodsRange maps were digitally interpreted, georeferenced, error-checked and subsequently taxonomically aligned between the HMW (6253 species), the CMW (6431 species) and the MDD taxonomies (6362 species).ResultsRange maps can be evaluated and visualised in an online map browser at Map of Life (mol.org) and accessed for individual or batch download for non-commercial use.Main conclusionExpert maps of species' global distributions are limited in their spatial detail and temporal specificity, but form a useful basis for broad-scale characterizations and model-based integration with other data. We provide georeferenced range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species as shapefiles, with species-level metadata and source information packaged together in geodatabase format. Across the three taxonomic sources our maps entail, there are 1784 taxonomic name differences compared to the maps currently available on the IUCN Red List website. The expert maps provided here are harmonised to the MDD taxonomic authority and linked to a community of online tools that will enable transparent future updates and version control

The relationship between age at first drink and later risk behaviours during a period of youth drinking decline.

AIMS: Alcohol consumption among teenagers in many high-income countries has steadily declined since the early 2000s. There has also been a steady increase in the average age at first drink, a reliable marker of later alcohol problems. This study measured whether young people who initiated drinking early were at increased risk of alcohol problems in young adulthood in recent cohorts where early initiation was comparatively rare. DESIGN: Analysis of six waves of a repeated cross-sectional household survey (2001-16) in Australia. A total of 9576 young adults (aged 20-25 years) who had initiated drinking before the age of 20 years. MEASUREMENTS: Respondents were classified into three groups based on their self-reported age at first drink (< 16, 16-17, 18-19 years). Outcome variables were self-reported experiences of memory loss while drinking, risky and delinquent behaviour while drinking and monthly or more frequent drinking occasions of 11 or more 10-g standard drinks. FINDINGS: Later initiators reported lower levels of all outcomes [e.g. odds ratios (ORs) for memory loss were 0.56, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.50, 0.63] for those who first drank at 16 or 17 years compared with those who first drank at age 15 or younger). Significant interactions between age at first drink and survey year showed that early initiation was more strongly associated with harms (e.g. for memory loss, OR = 0.97, 95% CI = 0.94, 0.99 for 18-19 versus 15 or younger) in young adulthood for recent cohorts where early drinking was less common. CONCLUSIONS: The decline in youth drinking may have contributed to a concentration of risk of alcohol problems among those young people who consume alcohol in early adolescence. Early initiation of drinking may be an increasingly important marker of broader risk taking as alcohol becomes less normative for teenagers