Ireland, UK Efforts to Ban Alcohol Sport Sponsorship Continue

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January 10, 2015

Doctors and public health advocates in the United Kingdom and Ireland are calling for a ban on alcohol sports sponsorships, with concerns that they encourage youth drinking and normalize the association of drinking with sport spectatorship.

England and Ireland join a growing chorus of public health experts in the European Union, New Zealand and Australia who have called for similar alcohol advertising restrictions in sporting events and broadcasts to protect youth from overexposure to alcohol marketing. Reports have indicated that sport sponsorship increases problem drinking in athletes, overexposes youth to alcohol advertising on television, and that youth were bombarded with alcohol advertising during the World Cup.

Restrictions on alcohol advertising in sports should be part of a larger policy to protect youth, including elimination of self-regulation of advertising by the alcohol industry, which allows overexposure of alcohol advertising to youth and provides no effective enforcement for code violations.

Binge Drinking & Alcohol Poisoning in the US: Perception vs. Reality

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January 10, 2015

New research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) illuminates the link between binge drinking and alcohol poisoning, dispelling common beliefs about who is most affected:

• An estimated 6 adults a day die from alcohol poisoning in the U.S.
• A majority of these deaths occur among the age group 34-64, not young drinkers.
• Alcohol addiction is a contributing factor in just 30% of alcohol poisoning deaths.

The alcohol poisoning report is the latest in a series of CDC research studies showing that alcohol-related harm is a widespread problem in the U.S., affecting a much larger proportion of the population than is commonly believed:

• Excessive consumption accounts for 1 in 10 deaths among working-age U.S. adults.
• Nearly 88,000 deaths per year are attributable to excessive alcohol consumption.
• One in 6 adults in the U.S. engages in binge drinking regularly.
• Only 1 in 10 problem drinkers meet the clinical criteria for alcohol dependence.
• Excessive consumption results in $223 billion in annual economic costs.

Alcohol-related harm and its associated costs are not relegated to a small proportion of the population who are alcohol dependent. These problems must be addressed by policies that are directed at the population level, and by targeting environmental factors that contribute to excessive consumption. The CDC recommends evidence-based strategies such as limiting access and availability and raising taxes to prevent alcohol-related harm.