Alcohol Awareness Week
Can we afford the cost of drinking too much?
Media Pack 2009
Alcohol Awareness Week this year will run on the 19th to 23rd October and we intend it to be our best one yet. The aim of the week is to raise public awareness of the scale and harm of alcohol abuse and of our recommendations for action. Activities during the week will be run in collaboration between ourselves, treatment providers, Regional Alcohol Managers, Drug and Alcohol Teams, Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships and Primary Care Trusts.
Alcohol Concern will publish a report in November titled ‘Future Proof: Can we afford the cost of drinking too much?’ The report will investigate how harm levels may rise in the future if alcohol consumption continues to increase. We will launch the key findings of this report with a Reception at the House of Commons on the first day of Alcohol Awareness Week, 19th October.
Throughout the week we are encouraging our local and regional colleagues (that’s you) to hold events in their areas or develop and release media stories highlighting local issues and successes in service delivery. Some of the specific areas of focus will be youth drinking, teenagers in treatment, child protection and wellbeing and domestic abuse. We are currently gathering new statistics and information on each of these areas and will provide this, broken down by region where possible, at a later date. We are also due to conduct a survey in collaboration with the British Association of Social Workers and Community Care on issues surrounding child protection and parental alcohol misuse.
During the week we want to:
· Highlight the breadth and depth of alcohol misuse - for not only individuals, but families and wider society.
· Use interesting new information and statistics to attract attention and broaden the public’s understanding of alcohol misuse and those who misuse alcohol.
· Look to the future to assess how alcohol misuse problems may increase and think about what can be done to tackle them.
This awareness pack should come in handy whether you prefer to raise awareness among the public about the sensible drinking message, or campaign for more money for treatment services (or do both). It contains ideas you may wish to carry out or can suggest to others in your region who are interested in marking Alcohol Awareness Week.
If you have any questions about the week, or need support in organising activities, please contact:
Carys Davis, Media & Public Affairs Officer 0207 264 0514
Contents Page
1. Key messages for Alcohol Awareness Week 2009 from Alcohol Concern 3
2. Key messages for Alcohol Awareness Week 2009 from Department of Health 5
3. Useful information 6
4. Activity Ideas - Letter to the Editor 7
5. Activity Ideas - Invite your MP to visit a local treatment service 8
6. Activity Ideas -Organise a stakeholder’s event 8
7. Activity Ideas - Organise an information stand 8
Alcohol Concern’s Key Messages for Alcohol Awareness Week 2009
During Alcohol Awareness Week 2009, Alcohol Concern will be focusing on:
Objectives
· Highlight the breadth and depth of alcohol misuse - for not only individuals, but families and wider society.
· Using interesting new information and statistics to attract attention and broaden the public’s understanding of alcohol misuse and those who misuse alcohol.
· Looking to the future to assess how alcohol misuse problems may increase and think about what can be done to tackle them
Key themes
· Youth drinking
· Teenagers in treatment
· Child protection
· Domestic abuse
Key ideas – some ideas for tackling alcohol harms
Price/consumption/harm
· Alcohol consumption and alcohol harms have risen as alcohol has become relatively cheaper. Applying a minimum price to alcohol will reduce consumption and alcohol-related harms.
· Drinks promotions which encourage irresponsible drinking should be subject to a nationwide ban in order to reduce alcohol-related crime and disorder – this would also have beneficial effects on health
Treatment
· The most effective way of reducing alcohol related hospital admissions is through the provision of specialist alcohol services.
· There is an unfair disparity between the amount of money spent per head on drug treatment, compared to alcohol treatment
· Alcohol problems are better tackled if services work with families of problematic drinkers as well as the individual themselves, while remaining aware of how domestic abuse might also be an issue.
Licensing
· Licensing Act 2003 needs to have a public health objective to require licensing authorities to take the health of local people into account when deciding whether to grant further licences.
Marketing/advertising
· There should be a watershed ban on alcohol advertising to limit the number of children exposed to alcohol advertisements
Department of Health’s Key Messages for Alcohol Awareness Week 2009
During Alcohol Awareness Week 2009, the Department will be focusing on:
· People across England are being urged to ‘rethink their drink’
· The Government’s Know Your Limits campaign is encouraging people to keep a drink diary for the week to find out how many units they are drinking
· The CMO recommends that men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 units of alcohol daily and women should not regularly drink more than 2-3 units daily
· In addition you should also take a break for 48 hours after an episode of heavy drinking to let your body recover
· Regularly drinking over the lower-risk guidelines can lead to serious health problems including: certain types of cancer including breast and liver cancer; high blood pressure; increased risk of heart disease and certain types of stroke; and liver disease, such as cirrhosis
· Over a quarter of the population (10 million adults) drink above the guidelines for lower-risk drinking
· Of these, 2.6 million adults (8% of men and 6% of women*) regularly drink at higher-risk levels
· As well as reducing the longer term health risks, cutting down on your drinking may help you to look and feel in better shape
· Know Your Limits has produced a series of tips to help you cut back on your drinking, visit www.nhs.uk for further information
Useful information
Statistical information based on the four key themes, broken down by region where possible, is to follow.
For England:
Statistics on Alcohol: England 2009
http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/alcoholeng2009/Final%20Format%20draft%202009%20v7.pdf
· Individuals
o In 2007, a quarter of people were classified as hazardous drinkers (ONS, 2009)[1]
o In 2007/08 there were 863,300 hospital admissions related to alcohol consumption (primary or secondary diagnosis) – a 69% increase since 2002/03 when there were 510,200 such admissions (ONS 2009)
o The most common primary diagnosis for alcohol-specific hospital admissions is mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol (ONS 2009)
· Families
o 46% of domestic violence offenders were under the influence of alcohol when they committed acts of violence (British Crime Survey 2008)
o There are up to 1.3 million children affected by parental alcohol misuse (Cabinet Office, 2004)
o Women experiencing domestic abuse are up to 15 times more likely to misuse alcohol than women generally (Stark and Flitcraft, 1996)
o Alcohol-related domestic violence increases the risks to children; alcohol plays a part in 25-33% of cases of child abuse (AHRSE, 2004)
· Society
o The Department of Health estimated the cost of alcohol misuse to the NHS is £2.7 billion annually in 2006/07 prices (DH, 2008)
o The Cabinet Office estimated in 2003 the cost of alcohol-related crime/public disorder to be up to £7.3 billion per year (Cabinet Office, 2003)
o The Cabinet Office estimates the total cost of alcohol harm to be between £17.7 billion and £25.1 billion per year in 2006/07 prices (Home Office 2009)
For information by Government Office region:
http://www.nwph.net/alcohol/lape/
For local information by County Districts, London Boroughs, Unitary Authorities and Metropolitan Council Districts and Counties:
Local Health Profiles (released 30th June 2009):
http://www.apho.org.uk/default.aspx?QN=P_HEALTH_PROFILES
To find local alcohol initiatives throughout England:
http://www.hubcapp.org.uk/
Activity Ideas
1. Letter to the editor
Many local and regional papers have readerships of tens of thousands, so this can be a powerful starting point to raise awareness in your area of Alcohol Awareness Week and problems of alcohol misuse in general.
For the contact details of every local newspaper in the South of England, visit: http://www.wrx.zen.co.uk/soupress.htm.
For the contact details of every local newspaper in the North of England, visit: http://www.wrx.zen.co.uk/norpress.htm
There should be an address for letters in your local paper or find a list of local newspaper addresses at http://www.newspapersoc.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=3
We’ve created a template letter you can use to do this quickly and easily, by copying and pasting the basic text and adding statistics relevant to your area. You can, of course, alter the template as you see fit. If your letter is printed, we’d love to hear about it, so please send the cutting to Carys Davis, Alcohol Concern, 64 Leman Street, Aldgate E1 8EU or if online, please send the link to
Letter to the Editor template
Dear Editor,
Every day now there seems to be another big story about binge drinking, alcohol-related violence or drink-related deaths in the national media. It is all too easy to imagine that these problems only exist in other places, in the same way that one imagines that drink-related illnesses only happen to ‘other people’. Since England & Wales are marking ‘Alcohol Awareness Week’ from October 19th I thought readers might be interested to learn how (your Local Authority Area) compares with the rest of the country.
According to the latest figures, (xxx men and xxx women- insert number from local alcohol profiles) in (your Local Authority Area) entered hospital for an alcohol-related reason. Of those, (xx-insert number from local alcohol profiles) were under the age of eighteen. Fortunately/Worryingly we are above/below the regional average when it comes to binge drinking.
During Awareness Week I’d like to suggest that we all take a moment to reflect on how much we drink. There’s no doubt that for most of us, moderate drinking can add to the quality of our lives. However, there’s also a need to guard against getting into risky habits, particularly if we socialise lots, or regularly buy alcohol to drink at home. For information, the government’s recommended limits for safe drinking are 2-3 units per day for women and 3-4 units per day for men. Sticking to those limits gives us the best likelihood of a lifetime of risk-free drinking.
Yours sincerely, et
2. Invite your local MP to visit a treatment centre
A meeting with your MP will let you discuss an issue in more detail than is possible in a letter. To arrange the meeting contact Alcohol Concern’s Parliamentary Officer on 0207 264 0514. We have a great deal of success in arranging such visits and generally find MPs receptive to our approach.
Make sure the meeting is well structured, with presentations made by members of the local group or other invited speakers on the issue you want to highlight. MPs are generally very busy, so you need to invite them at least a month in advance.
Before the meeting:
1) Organise what you want to say. What are the key points you want to make?
2) Prepare a short briefing, outlining the case point by point, which you can give to the MP at the end of the meeting
3) make sure you have all relevant papers and supporting evidence with you as well as photocopies for the MP
At the Meeting:
1) Be clear in your argument
2) Try to get firm commitments from the MP, and try to establish exactly what they will do
After the Meeting
Write to your MP, thanking them for their time, and for any promises of support they have made. It is a good reminder!
3. Organise a stakeholder’s event
It is often worthwhile to organise an event bringing together key stakeholders to discuss some element of your local area’s alcohol strategy, for example youth drinking. The key benefit of such an event is that allows you to use the hook of a national Alcohol Awareness Week to raise the profile of whatever harm-reduction efforts are underway among local residents.
4. Organise an information stand
Information stands can be productive if they’re well placed – for example, on a busy shopping street, shopping centre or local leisure centre. Ask your local newspaper to run a story on your stand using the hook of national Alcohol Awareness Week. Be prepared to supply your own photographs in case they’re too busy to send a photographer.
Alcohol Concern can provide a press release templates if necessary. Please contact Carys Davis, Media and Public Affairs Officer on 020 7264 0514 or
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[1] NB - The terms ‘lower Risk’, ‘Increasing Risk’ and ‘Higher Risk’ are now used by the Department of Health, reflecting the level of risk incurred by drinkers as their consumption increases.