Stakeholders' views of Alcohol Policy

Abstract

Method A questionnaire survey on views of alcohol policy was completed by stakeholders (country counterparts of the European Commission's Alcohol and Health Working Group (mostly government officials), country nongovernmental organizations that have a remit on alcohol policy, and representative bodies of the beverage alcohol industry, who are stakeholders of the European Commission's Alcohol and Health Working group). Results Representatives of the alcohol industry (AIs) tended to hold different views than representatives of governmental (GOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who were more similar in their views. The AIs viewed regulatory measures as of low impact and policy importance in strong contrast to both NGOs and GOs. AIs were more favourable to educational measures than either NGOs or GOs. All three groups were similar and positive in their views of the impact and importance of implementation measures and of interventions for hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption. In general, AIs were more positive in their views of successful implementation of both the WHO European Alcohol Action Plan and the Council Recommendation on the dinking of alcohol by young people than GOs who were more favourable than NGOs, but this was largely due to the AIs giving very high implementation scores for items that were their responsibility. With regard to perceived advances and barriers, again there were discordant views between the AIs and both the GOs and NGOs, who were more similar in their perceptions. The strongest theme among GOs and NGOs was the importance of coordination in implementing action plans and strategies at country and European levels. The strongest theme among AIs was stakeholder involvement, i.e. their own participation in the policy process. This was in contrast to the views of GOs and NGOs who both saw industry lobbying as a major barrier to effective policy to reduce alcohol-related harm. Conclusion Whilst representatives of the alcohol industry regard themselves as having an equal place to GOs and NGOs in policy discussion, they bring to the policy table markedly different views than GOs and NGOs, proposing educational measures, for which the scientific evidence for impact is rather wanting, and opposing regulatory measures, for which the scientific evidence for impact is rather strong. In contrast, government officials and non-governmental organizations view industry lobbying as a major barrier to effective alcohol policy.