Abstract
Background: The World Health Organization global strategy on alcohol called for municipal policies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. Yet, there is limited evidence that documents the impact of city-level alcohol policies. Methods: Review of reviews for all years to July 2017. Searches on OVID Medline, Healthstar, Embase, PsycINFO, AMED, Social Work Abstracts, CAB Abstracts, Mental Measurements Yearbook, Health and Psychosocial Instruments, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts, NASW Clinical Register, and Epub Ahead of Print databases. All reviews that address adults, without language or date restrictions resulting from combining the terms ("review" or "literature review" or "review literature" or "data pooling" or "comparative study" or "systematic review" or "meta-analysis" or "pooled analysis"), and "alcohol", and "intervention" and ("municipal" or "city" or "community"). Results: Five relevant reviews were identified. Studies in the reviews were all from high income countries and focussed on the acute consequences of drinking, usually with one target intervention, commonly bars, media, or drink-driving. No studies in the reviews reported the impact of comprehensive city-based action. One community cluster randomized controlled trial in Australia, published after the reviews, failed to find convincing evidence of an impact of community-based interventions in reducing adult harmful use of alcohol. Conclusions: To date, with one exception, the impact of adult-oriented comprehensive community and municipal action to reduce the harmful use of alcohol has not been studied. The one exception failed to find a convincing effect. We conclude with recommendations for closing this evidence gap.
Highlights
In response to the 2011 United Nations declaration on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) (United Nations General Assembly, 2011; United Nations, 2014), the World Health Organization proposed a target to reduce the harmful use of alcohol by 10% between the years 2010 and 2025 (World Health Organization, 2014a), based on three possible indicators, adult per capita alcohol consumption, prevalence of heavy episodic drinking, and measures of alcohol-related morbidity and mortality (World Health Organization, 2014b).The bulk of alcohol-related severe health problems, including mortality, occurs in middle age (Office for National Statistics, 2015), and, it is amongst this age group that policy and programme interventions are likely to bring the greatest health and productivity gains (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015)
We have added a paragraph to the discussion which notes that, as the bulk of alcohol-related morbidity and mortality occurs in middle-age, actions that reduce the harmful use of alcohol in middle-age can lead to almost immediate health gain, whereas actions that reduce the harmful use of alcohol in adolescents and young people, were they sustained, would take many years before they impact on middle-aged morbidity and mortality
We have undertaken this review to investigate the potential impact of comprehensive city and municipal-based action to reduce the harmful use of alcohol amongst adults
Summary
In response to the 2011 United Nations declaration on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) (United Nations General Assembly, 2011; United Nations, 2014), the World Health Organization proposed a target to reduce the harmful use of alcohol by 10% between the years 2010 and 2025 (World Health Organization, 2014a), based on three possible indicators, adult per capita alcohol consumption, prevalence of heavy episodic drinking, and measures of alcohol-related morbidity and mortality (World Health Organization, 2014b).The bulk of alcohol-related severe health problems, including mortality, occurs in middle age (Office for National Statistics, 2015), and, it is amongst this age group that policy and programme interventions are likely to bring the greatest health and productivity gains (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015). In response to the 2011 United Nations declaration on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) (United Nations General Assembly, 2011; United Nations, 2014), the World Health Organization proposed a target to reduce the harmful use of alcohol by 10% between the years 2010 and 2025 (World Health Organization, 2014a), based on three possible indicators, adult per capita alcohol consumption, prevalence of heavy episodic drinking, and measures of alcohol-related morbidity and mortality (World Health Organization, 2014b). One community cluster randomized controlled trial in Australia, published after the reviews, failed to find convincing evidence of an impact of community-based interventions in reducing adult harmful use of alcohol. Conclusions: To date, with one exception, the impact of adultversion 2
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