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IntroductionWe conducted a pilot assessment of the feasibility of implementing the International Alcohol Control (IAC) Study in Ontario, Canada, to allow for future comparisons on the impacts of alcohol control policies with a number of countries. MethodsThe IAC Study questionnaire was adapted for use in the province of Ontario, and a split-sample approach was used to collect data. Data were collected by computer-assisted telephone interviewing of 500 participants, with half the sample each answering a subset of the adapted IAC Study survey. ResultsJust over half of the sample (53.6%) reported high frequency drinking (once a week or more frequently), while 6.5% reported heavy typical occasion drinking (8 drinks or more per session). Self-reported rates of alcohol-related harms from one's own and others' drinking were relatively low. Attitudes towards alcohol control varied. A substantial majority supported more police spot checks to detect drinking and driving, while restrictions on the number of alcohol outlets and increases in the price of alcohol were generally opposed. ConclusionThis pilot study demonstrated that the IAC Study survey can be implemented in Canada with some modifications. Future research should assess how to improve participation rates and the feasibility of implementing the longitudinal aspect of the IAC Study. This survey provides additional insight into alcohol-related behaviours and attitudes towards alcohol control policies, which can be used to develop appropriate public health responses in the Canadian context.

IntroductionNous avons mené une évaluation pilote sur la faisabilité de la mise en œuvre de l’étude internationale sur le contrôle de l’alcool (IAC, pour International Alcohol Control) en Ontario (Canada) afin de pouvoir comparer les répercussions des politiques sur le contrôle de l’alcool dans différents pays. MéthodologieLe questionnaire de l’étude IAC a été adapté pour la province de l’Ontario. Les données ont été recueillies selon une approche par échantillon fractionné, au moyend’entrevues téléphoniques assistées par ordinateur réalisées auprès de 500 participants, chaque moitié de l’échantillon répondant à un sous­ensemble de l’enquête adaptée de l’étude IAC. RésultatsUn peu plus de la moitié de l’échantillon (53,6 %) a fait état d’une consommation fréquente d’alcool (une fois par semaine ou plus fréquemment) et 6,5 % des répondants ont fait état d’une consommation excessive occasionelle d’alcool élevée (8 consommations ou plus par occasion). Les taux de méfaits liés à l’alcool dont ont fait état les répondants, qu’il s’agisse de leur propre consommation ou de celle des autres, sont demeurés relativement faibles. Les attitudes à l’égard du contrôle de l’alcool étaient variées. La grande majorité des répondants s’est prononcée en faveur d’une augmentation du nombre de contrôles policiers d’alcoolémie pour détecter les cas de conduite avec facultés affaiblies, alors que les restrictions sur le nombre de points de vente d’alcool et l’augmentation du prix de l’alcool ont été généralement rejetées. ConclusionCette étude pilote a démontré que l’enquête IAC peut être mise en œuvre au Canada après quelques modifications. Les futurs travaux de recherche auront à explorer des moyens d’améliorer les taux de participation et la faisabilité de la mise en œuvre de l’aspect longitudinal de l’étude IAC. Cette enquête fournit des renseignements supplémentaires sur les comportements liés à l’alcool et sur les attitudes à l’égard des politiques de contrôle de l’alcool utilisables pour élaborer des interventions de santé publique propres au contexte canadien.

Issues: Advertising and marketing affect alcohol use; however, no single systematic review has covered all aspects of how they affect alcohol use, and how the alcohol industry views alcohol marketing restrictions. Approach: Two systematic reviews of reviews were performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items on 2 February 2023. Results were analysed using a narrative synthesis approach. Key Findings: Twenty‐three reviews were included in the systematic reviews. The first systematic review examined youth and adolescents (11 reviews), digital or internet marketing (3 reviews), alcohol marketing's impact on cognition (3 reviews), and alcohol marketing and policy options (2 reviews). The second systematic review focused on alcohol industry (i.e., importers, producers, distributors, retailers and advertising firms) response to advertising restrictions (four reviews). The reviews indicated that there is evidence that alcohol marketing (including digital marketing) is associated with increased intentions to drink, levels of consumption and harmful drinking among youth and young adults. Studies on cognition indicate that advertisements focusing on appealing contexts and outcomes may be more readily accepted by adolescents, and may be less easily extinguished in this population. The review of the alcohol industry found a strong desire to self‐regulate alcohol advertising. Implications: We found alcohol advertising and marketing is associated with increased drinking intentions, consumption and harmful drinking. Thus, policies which restrict advertising may be an effective way to reduce alcohol use. Conclusion: More research is needed to assess all aspects of the observed associations, especially as to how marketing policies impact women and people with alcohol dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims: Alcohol retail access is associated with alcohol use and related harms. This study measured whether this association differs for people with and without heavy and disordered patterns of alcohol use. Design: The study used a repeated cross‐sectional analysis of health administrative databases. Setting, participants/cases: All residents of Ontario, Canada aged 10–105 years with universal health coverage (n = 10 677 604 in 2013) were included in the analysis. Measurements Quarterly rates of emergency department (ED) and outpatient visits attributable to alcohol in 464 geographic regions between 2013 and 2019 were measured. Quarterly off‐premises alcohol retail access scores were calculated (average drive to the closest seven stores) for each geographic region. Mixed‐effect linear regression models adjusted for area‐level socio‐demographic covariates were used to examine associations between deciles of alcohol retail access and health‐care visits attributable to alcohol. Stratified analyses were run for individuals with and without prior alcohol‐attributable health‐care use in the past 2 years. Findings We included 437 707 ED visits and 505 271 outpatient visits attributable to alcohol. After adjustment, rates of ED visits were 39% higher [rate ratio (RR) = 1.39, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.20–1.61] and rates of outpatient visits were 49% higher (RR = 1.49, 95% CI = 1.26–1.75) in the highest versus lowest decile of alcohol access. There was a positive association between alcohol access and outpatient visits attributable to alcohol for individuals without prior health‐care attributable to alcohol (RR = 1.65, 95% CI = 1.39–1.95 for the highest to lowest decile of alcohol access) but not for individuals with prior health‐care attributable to alcohol (RR = 1.08, 95% CI = 0.90–1.30). There was a positive association between alcohol access and ED visits attributable to alcohol for individuals with and without prior health‐care for alcohol for ED visits. Conclusion: In Ontario, Canada, greater alcohol retail access appears to be associated with higher rates of emergency department (ED) and outpatient health‐care visits attributable to alcohol. Individuals without prior health‐care for alcohol may be more susceptible to greater alcohol retail access for outpatient but not ED visits attributable to alcohol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary illustrates a recent case study within Ontario, Canada, in which the application of sociodemographic and health data was used by public health to support a legal case to oppose a retail licence application to consume liquor at a corner store located within a neighbourhood that has experienced low socio‐economic factors, including low income, high unemployment and low educational attainment levels. Communities in a similar situation may draw from this situation to prevent expansion of alcohol retail availability in neighbourhoods that have low socio‐economic status populations and high unemployment and other factors associated with high rates of alcohol‐related harms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PurposeFew studies have compared acute use of alcohol in suicide decedents with that in a nonsuicide group. This study provides the first national analysis of acute use of alcohol before suicide compared with an estimate of acute use of alcohol in a living sample.MethodsPooled 2003-2011 National Violent Death Reporting System data were used to estimate the prevalence of postmortem blood alcohol content positivity (blood alcohol content >0.0 g/dL) and intoxication (blood alcohol content ≥0.08 g/dL). Population estimates of comparable use of alcohol (within the past 48 hours) were based on the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.ResultsCompared with the living sample, male and female suicide decedents showed, respectively, a 1.83-fold (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.73-1.93) and 2.40-fold (95% CI, 2.24-2.57) increased risk of alcohol ingestion before their death after age, race/ethnicity, and chronic alcohol problems were controlled. Furthermore, male and female decedents exhibited, respectively, a 6.18-fold (95% CI, 5.57-6.86) and a 10.04-fold (95% CI, 8.67-11.64) increased risk of being intoxicated before their death after confounders were considered.ConclusionsThe findings underscore the crucial need to include among the essential components of suicide prevention policies programs that minimize the use of alcohol, particularly drinking to intoxication.

Suicide remains a leading cause of death worldwide, with an estimated 700,000 suicide deaths per year. The World Health Organization identifies reducing alcohol use as one component of comprehensive approaches to suicide prevention. This paper conducted a rapid review of the evidence on alcohol-related suicide prevention interventions. PubMed, Embase and Web of Science were searched for articles related to alcohol, suicide, prevention, and policies, published between 1990 and 2020. 5293 articles were identified; after deduplication, 2567 studies were screened at the title and abstract level. 402 articles underwent full-text review. 69 articles were ultimately included and underwent data extraction. Interventions were categorized as policy interventions, community-based interventions, and clinical interventions. While there is evidence that policy interventions targeting alcohol may be associated with lower suicide rates, more evidence using stronger study designs is needed. The evidence for community interventions was mixed and supported the need for further research on these types of interventions. Pharmaceutical and therapy-based clinical interventions also showed some promise, with more research needed. Overall, despite evidence of alcohol's role in suicide attempts and deaths, few interventions have been developed with the purpose of addressing alcohol-related suicide. More research is needed to identify effective interventions to prevent alcohol-related suicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested a sociocultural model of stress and coping in a sample of 215 African Americans. Psychological resources (optimism, ego resilience) were modeled as a "nested self" (S. E. Hobfoll, 2001), supported by social resources (family adaptability and cohesion) and cultural resources (racial pride, religiosity). Race-related stress was a significantly more powerful risk factor than stressful life events for psychological distress. Structural equation modeling results confirmed the hypotheses that psychological resources had a significant direct effect in minimizing psychological distress, and social resources had a significant stress-suppressing effect on race-related stress. Theoretical and practical implications for counseling psychologists are discussed.

It is reasonable to believe that the alcohol policy environment can impact the suicide mortality rates in a given country, considering the well-known link between alcohol use and death by suicide. The current literature, albeit limited, suggests that an increase in alcohol taxation may result in a decrease in deaths by suicide and that the effect is sex-specific. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to test the impact of three alcohol control policy enactments (in 2008, 2017 and 2018) on suicide mortality among adults 25–74 years of age in Lithuania, by sex. To estimate the unique impact of three alcohol control policies, we conducted interrupted time-series analyses by employing a generalized additive mixed model on monthly sex-specific age-standardized suicide mortality rates from January 2001 to December 2018. Analyses showed a significant impact of the 2017 (p = 0.016) alcohol control policy on suicide mortality for men only. Specifically, we estimated that in the year following the 2017 policy enactment, approximately 57 (95% CI: 9–107) deaths by suicide were prevented among men, 25–74 years of age. The three policy enactments tested were not found to significantly impact the suicide mortality rate among women. Alcohol control policies involving pricing, which result in a notable decrease in alcohol affordability, could be a cost-effective indirect suicide prevention mechanism in not only countries of the former Soviet Union, but in other high-income countries with a comparable health care system to that in Lithuania. Increasing excise tax on alcohol was found to have a sex-specific impact on suicide mortality The 2017 alcohol policy prevented 57 deaths by suicide among men, 25–74 years of age, in the following year Alcohol pricing policies may be a cost-effective indirect suicide prevention mechanism [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Ontario, some court cases have involved attempts to sue social hosts for damage caused by the behaviour of drunken guests. Such legal actions give rise to the question of risks and responsibilities accruing to social hosts who serve alcohol. Using a sample of 1395 male and female adult residents of Ontario, the authors present self-report survey data concerning frequency of serving alcohol to guests, methods of handling guests who have too much to drink, prevention of drunk driving, service of alcohol to underage persons, and offering food and non-alcoholic drinks when serving alcohol at home. The results show high levels of intended safe practices overall, along with some areas for concern. Notably, about one-third of the total sample had had guests judged to be too drunk to drive home safely. A multivariate analysis confirmed significant differences associated with sex and age. The authors recommend the creation and evaluation of programmes to upgrade home-hosting skills as an adjunct to systemic alcohol control policies.

Presents stereotype of young adult Canadian male who drinks heavily, with hangovers and temporary forgetfulness as the only repercussions. Examines whether the work of Sully Ledermann and subsequent analyses of the model he proposed are relevant to this population and, if so, considers how key findings and hypotheses can be translated into useful community policy agenda. (NB)