Changing Trends in European Alcoholic Beverage Drinking: Selected Social, Demographic, Economic Factors, Drinking's Related Harms, and Prevention Control Policies Between the 1960s and 2000s

Abstract

This study confirms that during the decades following WW II there was a tendency towards closure of consumption of alcoholic beverages among the European countries. The Northern countries, which during the 1960s manifested the lowest rates of alcohol consumption, ended up with greater consumption rates than the Southern countries, manifested the opposite trend; greater amounts of consumptions in the 1960s and lower consumptions in the 2000s. During the same some period, social, demographic and economic indicators—urbanization, rate of elderly males, Income, female education, female employment and mother's age at their childbirths, tended to increase, while the alcoholic beverage control policy strategies showed differences according to the country. Liver disease-related mortality, decreased in most countries. Study limitations are noted

Keywords :

• consumption of alcoholic beverages
• liver disease-related mortality
• alcohol control policy measures
• socio-demographic and economic factors
• Europe

THE AUTHORS

Fabio Voller, PhD in Political Science, Sociologist at the Epidemiology Observatory of the Region of Tuscany Health Agency. He has worked on epidemiological studies of lifestyle, alcohol consumption, psychoactive drug use, mental health and health in prison in the Tuscan and Italian population. Among his publications, he is the co-author of a number of monographs about the health consequences of alcohol consumption in Italy. He is a work package 3 leader of the European Commission-funded AMPHORA project.

Francesco Maccari, PhD, is a senior statistical programmer for Novartis Vaccines and a contract professor of applied informatics for the Faculty of Economics at Tuscia University in Viterbo (Italy). He has been working as a statistician and a programmer since 2005, both in research institutions and in private companies, in the social, pharmaceutical and public health fields. He has been responsible for Italy data collection and for the country data harmonization phase for the AMPHORA project.

Pasquale Pepe, MSc, is a Senior Statistician at the Epidemiology Observatory of the Health Agency of Tuscany Region. He has worked for several years on medical statistics, clinical trials and epidemiological studies, and as a statistician has been part of the AMPHORA team in Florence. He has co-authored more than 30 papers.

Allaman Allamani, M.D., Psychiatrist; Family Therapist; Researcher. He has been coordinator of the Alcohol Centre, Florence Health Agency (1993–2009); since 2009 he has been consultant to the Region of Tuscany Health Agency for research on social epidemiology and prevention policy First non-alcoholic trustee of Italian Alcoholics Anonymous (1997–2003). He is a member of the editorial board of “Substance Use and Misuse.” Coordinator of a number of Italian projects on alcohol drinking prevention and policies, he has co-led work package 3 of the European Commission-funded AMPHORA project. Author and co-author of more than 170 articles, editor and co-editor of 16 books.

Notes

1 It is helpful and reasonable to consider the drinking alcoholic beverages, in whatever patterns and for whatever functions, as well as not drinking, for whatever reasons, as a complex, non-linear, multidimensional bounded (i.e., time, place, a range of inter-acting demographic characteristics at differential levels and qualities, as well as endogenous and exogenous necessary conditions) process and outcome which is effected by individual human and systemic awareness, perceptions, expectations, judgments, decision-making which is or is not implemented, learned from or not learned from, changed as realities changed, ceased or repeated-begun again and again. This dynamic complexity has rarely been considered in the planning, implementation, and assessment of alcoholic beverage interventions. Editor's note.

2 The reader is referred to which Hills's criteria for causation which were developed in order to help assist researchers and clinicians determine if risk factors were causes of a particular disease or outcomes or merely associated. (Hill, A. B. (1965). The environment and disease: associations or causation? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 58: 295–300.). Editor's note.

3 Tne Amphora data set regarding all the alcohol policy measures identified in each country by the country experts is available on request to the authors.

4 The roles, sources of influence, agendas, goals, and objectives of known, unknown, unknowable, visible, hidden, measurable, and not measurable relevant individual and systemic stakeholders associated with alcoholic beverage consumption were not part of the AMPHORA study. They merit study in order to have a more complete understanding of the efficacy, implications and consequences of planned interventions. Editor's note.

5 This relatively new term, introduced into the intervention literature, This relatively new term, introduced into the intervention literature by Friedman et al (Samuel R. Friedman, Diana Rossi, Peter L. Flom. (2006). “Big events” and networks: Thoughts on what could be going on. Connections 27(1): 9–14.) refers to major events such as mega–disasters, natural, as well as man-made, famine, conflict, genocide, disparities in health, epidemics, mass migrations, economic recessions, etc. which effect adaptation, functioning and quality-of-life of individuals as well as systems. Existential threat, instability and chaos are major dimensions and loss of control over one's life is experienced. Editor's note.