"The Dop System of Alcohol Distribution is Dead, but It's Legacy Lives On…."

Philip May,Soraya Seedat,Cudore Snell,Dixie Hedrick,Julie Hasken,Charles Parry,Marlene De Vries,Anna-Susan Marais,Julie Stegall

doi:10.3390/ijerph16193701

Abstract

Objective: Determine the prevalence of Dop, a system of labor payment via alcoholic beverages, in a South African province, and its influence on maternal drinking and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Methods: Data from studies of FASD epidemiology were analyzed. Results: Forty-two percent to 67% of mothers reported drinking. In 1999, 5% of women reported Dop allocations in their lifetime: 14% of mothers of FASD children and 1% of controls. In 2010, 1.1% of mothers reported lifetime Dop: 1.6% of FASD mothers and 0.7% of controls. Commercial alcohol sales have replaced the Dop system. Total FASD rates remained high in rural areas in 2010 and rose in urban settings. Urban rates of total FASD surpassed rural area rates in 2010. Correlation analysis did not reveal a strong or significant, direct relationship between Dop experience and heavy drinking (r = 0.123, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.015), or the diagnosis of FASD in children (OR = 0.003, p = 0.183). Conclusion: Dop, as a systematic practice, is dead and does not have a direct influence on alcohol availability, heavy maternal drinking, or the probability of an FASD diagnosis. Nevertheless, today’s problematic drinking patterns were heavily influenced (shaped) by Dop and have negatively impacted the prevalence and severity of FASD.

Highlights

In the Western Cape Province (WCP) of the Republic of South Africa (SA), many people are involved in agriculture, especially viticulture, the growing of grapes, and the production of wine.SA is known globally for producing, selling, and exporting popular and fine wines of many varieties.Many workers live or have lived on the farms
While the Dop system has been prohibited or outlawed by a number of provincial and national statutes for many years, and general public sentiment in South Africa is overwhelmingly not supportive of Dop, many public health advocates maintained that Dop distribution remained on certain farms in the 1990’s in the WCP [6,9]. With this history in mind, we examined our epidemiological data from 1997 through 2011 to determine whether the Dop system still exists, whether it has changed in recent years, whether it has a direct impact on heavy drinking [2,4], and whether it presents a public health problem today
Community A is a town of 35,000 people and surrounded by rural areas, with 15,000 people located about a one-hour drive by automobile from Cape Town

Summary

Introduction

In the Western Cape Province (WCP) of the Republic of South Africa (SA), many people are involved in agriculture, especially viticulture, the growing of grapes, and the production of wine.SA is known globally for producing, selling, and exporting popular and fine wines of many varieties.Many workers live or have lived on the farms. Over a span of at least two centuries, and under the system of apartheid, many farm and vineyard workers in the WCP were provided with wine as partial payment for their labor [1,2,3]. This practice was referred to as the “Dop” system, and this name euphemistically refers to having a drink or “tot” of the beverage [1]. Many public health advocates maintained that Dop still existed and was prevalent in the 1990’s, even after the advent of democracy in 1994. Public Health 2019, 16, 3701; doi:10.3390/ijerph16193701 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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